The D.C. Attorney General has filed a lawsuit claiming the owner of a Dupont Circle house ran an unlicensed hotel and party venue. News4’s Shomari Stone reports.
The D.C. Attorney General has filed a lawsuit claiming the owner of a Dupont Circle house ran it as an unlicensed hotel and party venue.
The lawsuit said house owner Douglas G. Jefferies used Airbnb.com to advertise the house at 2220 Q Street, NW for rental for "parties, weddings and large-group vacations."
In one year, D.C. police responded to 90 calls for disorderly conduct and received many calls from neighbors for excessive noise late at night, the attorney general's office said in a statement.
Jefferies said he believed the problem was that, when he initially listed the home, he listed it as a venue for events.
"It's a sizeable home so that you can have an event, so I added that in my Airbnb description," Jefferies said.
Jefferies has since changed the listing to say that it is "not for events." He also said he reminds his tenants about D.C.'s 10 p.m. noise ordinance.
But, he added, "If you had a house and you had another house that you were renting, and those tenants had a party, would the police come after the tenants that were making the noise or would they come after the owners that were renting the house?"
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The Airbnb listing now calls the house "great for tourists and traveling businessmen," touting its heated pool and steam shower, six outdoor spaces and projector screen TV room.
The price for a stay in September was $1,200 per night, with another $280 in service fees and occupancy taxes.
Huffington Post included the house, called Celebrity Mansion, on a 2015 list of the most successful Airbnb properties in every U.S. state.
Jefferies is the founder of Results Gym and also founded the non-profit Mission Results.
The D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs does not have records of Jefferies receiving or applying for business licenses for the Q Street house, according to the lawsuit.
