STRs continue to be big business in Arizona, keep Scottsdale Police on their toes

By J. Graber
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Airbnb continues to be big business in Arizona, which can be taken as good news or bad.
A recent report from Airbnb states the company generated approximately $3.4 billion in Arizona last year.

That breaks down into 42,000 jobs supported by guest spending, and estimated $2 billion in labor income and approximately $867 million in total tax revenue.

The report does not break those statistics down relevant to Scottsdale, but it did note that the top cities with guests visiting Scottsdale are Phoenix and Tucson.

After those two, it breaks down into Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.

And the states with the most guests visiting Scottsdale are from California, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Washington and Colorado.

But short-term rentals continue to be a problem for law enforcement officers.
Scottsdale Police responded to 177 calls for noise and nuisance parties in May; 92 of them were to short-term rentals, according to a report from Police Chief Joe Le Duc to the city council members.

A short-term rental, also knowns as an STR, is any property that is for rent for less than a month at a time.

There were 54 charges filed -- which breaks down to 24 stemming from calls to the homes and 30 related to licensing and non-compliance issues.

The numbers are coming down. The 177 noise complaints in May 2025 is way down from the 212 in May 2024,

“I think what we can glean from this is, we are having success reducing the number of incidents and so we need to continue in bringing those numbers down,” said vice mayor Jan Dubauskas.

City councilman Barry Graham was not happy with the numbers at all.

“They’re still too high,” he said. “This is very disruptive to quality of life.”
Some notable incidents which occurred in May involving short-term rentals include, according to the report:

• A large, unlicensed short-term rental party with over 40 attendees was broken up; the host was cited for operating without a license.
• An armed robbery involving a stolen phone at a short-term rental remains under investigation.
• A delayed sexual assault report from a short-term rental is being investigated.
• Reports of gunfire at a complex with multiple short-term rentals; one unit had an active disturbance.
• A host was cited after guests were found partying on the roof.
• Six emergency contacts were cited for failing to respond during disturbances.

“It’s disturbing, but it’s good that we are shining a light on this because the operators of these egregious incidents should be held accountable,” Graham said.
City Councilman Adam Kwasman said he would like to see work continue.

“I think we need to continue to crack down on individual violators of the current rules and potential bad actors to be removed from the STR community,” he said.

Le Duc noted the police are continuing to take active steps when it comes to enforcement of laws related to short-term rentals, including:

• The Short-Term Rental Team finalized the City Response short-term rental timeline, a living document capturing interdepartmental short-term rental response benchmarks.
• A new virtual quarterly newsletter was launched in mid-May and distributed to over 3,500 licensed short-term rental properties. The first issue focused on pool safety and barrier requirements to prevent summer drownings.
• Constituent Services through the city manager’s office is now operational and will begin assisting with citizen inquiries and complaints related to short-term rentals.

City Councilwoman Maryann McAllen noted, “The movement of code enforcement under the police department makes for additional efficiencies.”

The realignment brings the city’s 19-member code enforcement team under the umbrella of Scottsdale Police and is designed to allow for a more coordinated response to quality-of-life issues such as property maintenance, zoning violations and public nuisance complaints.

Please send your comments to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines. J. Graber can be reached at jgraber@iniusa.org.