S A N TA M O N I C A
INSIDE Up Close and Personal With Estonian Director Tanel Toom
REFLECTING THE CONCERNS OF THE COMMUNITY smmirror.com
PAGE 15
December 13 – 19, 2019 Volume XXII, Issue 21
Unprovoked Attack on Senior Occurs Near Reed Park Joseph Jean Gilbert arrested for unprovoked attack on 87-year-old resident. By Sam Catanzaro
Photo: Santa Monica Police Department.
Joseph Jean Gilbert. Note: The Santa Monica Police Department says that Gilbert was found with the blood pictured on his face and that the blood is not the result of his arrest.
Elder abuse charges have been filed against a man suspected of attacking an 87-yearold Santa Monica resident last weekend on Wilshire Boulevard near Reed Park. According to Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD) Lieutenant Candice Cobarrubias, on December 7, 2019 at approximately 12:25 pm, officers responded to the area of 1100 block of 7th Street for an assault on an elderly male. “A male subject struck an elderly male in
the face causing significant facial trauma. The attack was unprovoked,” Cobarrubias said. According to a post on Facebook Group Residocracy Santa Monica, the victim is an 87-year-old, long time retired resident, Dr. R.L. Wong. After having coffee outside the Coffee Bean on 9th and Wilshire, Wong was walking westbound on the north side of Wilshire Blvd between 11:15 and 11:30 a.m. After he crossed Lincoln, while next to Reed Park, Wong was allegedly punched by the suspect. The suspect fled and Wong kept walking and filed a police report around an hour after the attack. According to the post, Wong lost 2-3 teeth in the attack, had his upper dentures split in half and suffered a swollen face, split upper lip and severe bleeding. Wong is now in stable condition with five stitches, bruises but no brain or bone injuries. According to the SMPD, the suspect, Jo-
Reed Park in Santa Monica.
Photo: Google
seph Jean Gilbert, was later found by officers in the area of 800 block of Ocean in Palisades Park and taken into custody without incident and arrested for 368 (B)(1) PC – Elder Abuse. On December 10, the Los Angeles District Attorney filed one count of Elder Abuse against Gilbert. Bail has been set at $50,000.
Airbnb Must Remove Illegal Santa Monica Listings Airbnb, City of Santa Monica come to a compliance agreement By Sam Catanzaro The City of Santa Monica and vacation rental platform Airbnb have come to an agreement intended to ensure all of the company’s listings comply with the City’s short-term rental laws, which are some of the strictest in the country. “After years of uncertainty for our host community in Santa Monica, the new settlement agreement provides our hosts the clarity they need to continue sharing their homes,” said Matt Middlebrook, Airbnb’s Head of Public Policy in California. Under the agreement, announced Tuesday, Airbnb will remove illegal short-term rental listings upon City notice, monitor and remove multiple listings that exceed the City’s
Photo: Councilmember Mike Bonin.
home-sharing limit and collect and pay a $2 per night to help support affordable housing in Santa Monica. “We now can better protect real permanent homes, especially our affordable rent-controlled apartments, from being used as de facto hotel rooms, displacing our neighbors,” said Santa
Monica City Councilmember Kevin McKeown. Santa Monica has some of the strictest homeshare regulations in the United States, outlawing rentals of whole houses to tourists and travelers for under 30 days. In addition, vacation-rental hosts in Santa Monica can only rent individual rooms to guests and must be present in the residence throughout the entire stay and hosts cannot have more than one listing at a time. The City of Santa Monica and Airbnb began negotiating an agreement in August when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed its rejection of Airbnb, Inc. and Homeaway.com’s challenge to the City’s home-sharing ordinance, which penalizes the online platforms for unlawfully booking shortterm vacation rentals of unlicensed properties in Santa Monica. The vacation-rental companies argued that the City’s ordinance ran afoul of the Communications Decency Act and the First Amendment because it required the platforms to monitor the content of third-party listings on their sites
and remove listings for unlicensed properties. A panel of the Ninth Circuit rejected this argument finding that the Ordinance only “prohibits processing transactions for unregistered properties” and does not proscribe, mandate, or even discuss the content of the listings that the Platforms display on their websites. It requires only that transactions involve licensed properties.” “We have fervently defended our ordinance and are pleased to reach a settlement with Airbnb that creates a workable system that aligns with our goal of protecting the City’s housing supply,” said City Attorney Lane Dilg. “This agreement with Airbnb will make the City’s enforcement efforts less costly and more effective; most importantly, it will preserve housing for our residents. This is a positive outcome for Santa Monica.” According to the City, there are currently 351 registered home-shares in the city with Airbnb accounting for a large majority of the listings. Last month, Airbnb and the City of Los Angeles came to a similar agreement intended to bolster compliance with LA’s regulations.
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