Tahoe is cracking down on Airbnbs. But officials can't stop visitors from coming.

Mayor Wallace doesn’t think Tahoe's second stay-at-home order will roll out the same way. This time, the order coincides with one of Tahoe’s busiest times of the year for tourism.

“We’re not like Hawaii,” she says. “We can’t stop traffic to South Lake Tahoe. We are not an island. Whether or not we can stop people from coming to South Lake Tahoe is just not an issue. We can’t. But when people are here, we can have people be good stewards of our community and be kind and safe.”

Just before the holidays, when Lake Tahoe typically fills up with visitors, California public health officials issued a stay-at-home order for the region because hospitals are filling up to capacity with patients who have COVID-19. As of Monday morning, hospitals in the Greater Sacramento area had lifted capacity back above the threshold to 15.1%. However, the order will stay in place for at least three weeks.

Despite the shutdown, Tahoe isn’t closed. Ski resorts are still spinning their lifts, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom encouraged Californians to go skiing, snowboarding and sledding. On the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, Gov. Steve Sisolak extended a statewide “pause” that restricts many businesses, including bars, restaurants and casinos, to 25% capacity. Sisolak did not implement a second shutdown like California. Doing so without federal aid would put Nevada in a severe depression, Sisolak said.

South Lake Tahoe is dealing with many of the contradictions in the stay-at-home order. Nonessential travel is prohibited, but day trips for outdoor recreation are apparently allowed. To complicate matters, the city also abuts the Nevada stateline. South Lake restaurants can only serve takeout. Bars are closed. Hotels cannot lodge visitors on vacation. But those visitors can still go to Nevada to eat indoors, order a drink at a bar and play blackjack in a casino.

There are also two ski resorts in South Lake Tahoe. “The ski resorts are open and encouraged to be open,” Wallace says. “People are encouraged to use them. However, we have no lodging to support them, and our restaurants are only open for takeout.”

Tahoe’s enforcement strategy relies on education. Local officials have been counseling the small, local businesses that are most impacted by the order. Jennifer Callaway, town manager for Truckee, has been corresponding with local businesses about the details of the stay-at-home order and how best to comply.

“It’s really quite devastating for many of our business members in our community,” Callaway says. “A lot of businesses in an economy like ours that’s really tourist-driven make their money in the holiday season.”

In the days leading up to the stay-at-home order, Callaway sent a letter to all lodging operators in Truckee, advising them to contact guests with reservations and avoid renting any rooms or homes to people who will be on vacation. The town of Truckee's website states that "all existing reservations must be canceled for a minimum of 3 weeks."

Ski resorts across the Lake Tahoe Basin have issued statements that they are contacting guests with lodging reservations. At Heavenly Ski Resort, which straddles the state line, safety protocols are consistent with California’s rules across the ski area, says Susan Whitman, spokesperson for Vail Resorts, which owns and operates Heavenly.

Cancellations picked up since the region went into the purple tier, says Jeffrey Hentz, CEO of the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association.

“We’ve seen a high rate of cancellations,” Hentz says. “We also know that a large number of our lodging partners are going to be aligned in following the protocols.”

Stricter regulations coming for short-term rentals

The stay-at-home order ends on Dec. 31 at the earliest, but restrictions on short-term rentals will last. On New Year’s Day, policies cracking down on Airbnb and short-term rentals roll out across the Lake Tahoe region.

On Jan. 1, 2021, new regulations for short-term rentals will go into effect in both Truckee and South Lake Tahoe. In South Lake Tahoe, Wallace says the new restrictions will begin a year-long attrition period until short-term rentals are banned completely outside of the city’s “tourist core,” which is the district near the casinos and the busiest roads. Short-term rentals outside the tourist core will be banned outright by Jan. 1, 2022.

South Lake Tahoe’s ban on short-term rentals is currently being challenged in court, but Wallace says the judge has not stopped it. “Unless something huge happens in court, the city is proceeding as if it goes into effect,” she says.

In Truckee, registration begins soon for the town’s new short-term rental licensing permits, which will be required starting Jan. 1, 2021. The goal of Truckee's new permit program, first and foremost, says Councilmember David Polivy, is to rein in the big problems that are frequently affiliated with Airbnbs: large groups of people cramming into small houses, trash being left out on the street where wildlife can get into it, too many cars parked on a property and spilling onto the street, creating traffic issues.

Truckee’s permit system also is a step to take an inventory of how many short-term rentals are operating in Truckee. The program caps things like how many people are allowed in a house, depending on the number of bedrooms. But it stops short of limiting the number of short-term rentals in the town, at least for now.

“Over time, it allows us to have a conversation about numbers of short-term rentals in our community,” Polivy says. “Do we want more? Do we want less? Is this good for the community? What are the benefits versus the consequences?”

Will people stay at home? 

The big question at the moment is whether people will still come up to stay in the house they rented for Christmas vacation. The stay-at-home order is hard to enforce, especially for short-term rentals on Airbnb and other vacation rental websites. And guests who reserved Airbnbs may not be able to receive refunds for cancellations.

“The recipe for disaster is so apparent right now, for this next month anyway,” says Court Leve, a Truckee resident and professional photographer. Leve has been an outspoken critic of short-term rentals in Truckee’s residential neighborhoods. “How is the town going to regulate who comes and stays right now? Reservations are already there. It’s going to be up to the renter and the rentee to say, ‘Hey, we have to play by the rules.’”

In Truckee, enforcement is going to be hard. Polivy said the Truckee Town Council will “potentially be considering” an emergency ordinance at their Dec. 22 meeting that would give the town authority to withhold a short-term rental permit if that property challenges the stay-at-home order. Still, Polivy hopes that property owners and managers will simply follow the state’s orders, so the situation doesn’t have to come to these emergency measures.

“Much like every business, much like every organization, much like the state, these are day-to-day changes that we are all making,” Polivy says, “not just in our lives, but in the rules that we live by in order to address the degree of the pandemic that we’re in right now. It’s serious times and therefore it calls for serious measures.”

Jim Winterberger, who owns a property management company called Tahoe Getaways that rents vacation homes, said his company is going to do “the right thing.”

“I firmly believe that getting to the other side of this is going to require a lot of personal sacrifice and my firm is prepared to make it,” Winterberger said. “It’s a tough pill to swallow and it’s tough to navigate, too.”

Jani Osborne owns a company that cleans homes and businesses in the greater Truckee area called Alpenglow Cleaning. Her cleaning protocols have increased with the pandemic: Not only are masks and gloves required, but there’s also a longer time between rentals to make sure the homes are thoroughly disinfected. Airbnbs and vacation rentals make up half of her business.

Since the stay-at-home order was announced, some of Osborne’s clients have been calling to pre-emptively cancel their upcoming appointments to clean vacation rentals. In March, during the first stay-at-home order, Osborne’s business nearly bottomed out, dropping to 10% of normal. When the community reopened in mid-June, she says business immediately spiked, jumping back up and then some, up to 110%. This time, Osborne says she thinks there will be a “slight dip” in people who choose not to come to Tahoe because of the stay-at-home order.

“Hopefully some people have learned that it’s the right thing to do,” Osborne says.

This shutdown is going to be hard on a lot of people in the community — not just visitors who have reservations they need to cancel. Christmas and New Year's are a peak season for Tahoe, two weeks out of the year that count as a make-or-break point for businesses to make up revenue after a slower time of year in the fall. The holidays also set up businesses for the rest of winter’s ups and downs, a trend that typically follows snow levels. A slower start to the ski season may shift this week as storms finally arrive in the Sierra Nevada.

“I’ve been in the community 18 years,” Osborne says. “I have friends that own restaurants, that run the ski resorts, that work either as waiters or at the ski lifts. All across the board, people will be impacted when tourism drops or when places shut down. It’s a huge impact.”

In South Lake Tahoe, Mayor Wallace works at a local church with a food pantry. She said the number of people who are coming to the door of the church and asking for help has increased significantly.

“People are scared,” Wallace says. “Very few people are in the middle here. And so, when things like this happen it affects lower income folks so much greater because so much of our community is in the service industry. It’s very scary what’s happening. The cost of living is so high already.”

Will the shutdown keep her community safe?

“I think what’s going to keep our community safe is the safeguards that we have put into place over the last 8 months. That is the mask order. Social distancing. The restrictions on the number of people that are in each business,” Wallace said.