The Kauai County Council is considering a bill that would effectively freeze the growth of unlicensed B&Bs and vacation rentals on the Garden Isle. Maui and Oahu both have similar measures in place and there have been some crackdowns. Essentially, what's happening is people in neighborhoods are complaining their quite little cul de sac is becoming a resort district. For their part, the bootleg B&B owners are claiming that they are being treated unfairly, particularly in light of the fact that many of the same people who are decrying off-the-books vacation rentals happen to be renting out what are often unpermitted apartments to long-term tenants -- something that also increases traffic and neighborhood density. Of course, its easier for the county authorities to crack down on tourists -- they also like to get paid the Transient Accommodations Tax (7% roughly, so no small mount of money to the state and counties, who both get a cut). Personally....

I am somewhat ambivalent to calls for bootleg B&B crackdowns. I think it would be much better to create a more accommodating permit process. As it stands right now, permitted B&B's charge more and they justify this charge as due to the fact they pay the TAT. Now, I've stayed at unlicensed places that also pay the TAT. And, in many cases, permitted B&B's seem to be charging well in excess of a 7% premium for peace of mind. In my experience, too, they are not necessarily better run or more conscientious. Some friends who recently stayed at a permitted B&B agonized over the decision before deciding it was morally better to stay legal. For their conscience they were treated to a B&B where the owner refused to allow them to have guests over even though he had ragers at his own house and where the owner also had promised them a parking space but then proceeded to park his own vehicles in that space during their entire stay. So much for scruples. The upshot? I'd not worry as much about permitted status as I would TripAdvisor.com reviews (and recent ones are imperative, since anything older than 3 months is probably pretty stale).

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—Alex, 03/22/07