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Voices

Vacation Rentals Benefit Santa Barbara

The city and its businesses reap a good profit from visitors who rent homes.

The city should reconsider the Vacation Rental Ban and definition of a "vacation rental" and instead issue common-sense regulations to specifically address certain issues of safety and operations so legal vacation rentals can continue in the City of Santa Barbara.

A ban is a mistake for many reasons:

• The City of Santa Barbara will lose its 12 percent Transient Occupancy Tax and its business license fees -- more than a million dollars per year. Implementing good regulations could allow the city to continue to get this much-needed revenue from which it could allocate the $180,000 per year for enforcement.