UWS Hotelier Hit With More Short-Term Rental Fines, City Says

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — An Upper West Side hotelier previously punished by the city for allegedly running an illegal hotel operation in the neighborhood is being hit with more fines, city Department of Buildings officials announced.

The Department of Buildings hit Hank Fried's Branic International Realty Co. with violations for illegal transient use, work without a permit and illegal occupancy related to its operation of the Marrakech Hotel on the corner of Broadway and West 103rd Streets, DOB officials said. The violations carried fines amounting to $55,000, officials said.

The Marrakech Hotel was illegally converted from a multiple dwelling residential building into a hotel, which violates city laws on short-term rentals. The city first sued Fried in February of 2017 for violating short-term rental laws by listing rooms at the Marrakech Hotel on sites like Expedia, Kayak, Orbitz and Airbnb.

The violations didn't strike fear into Fried or his lawyer Ronald J. Rosenberg, who described the city's short-term rental laws as "a joke," in 2017.

"We believe the law to be invalid," Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg told Patch in 2017 that he believed the violations and fines for advertising the vacancies at the Marrakesh Hotel were a violation of Fried's first amendment rights.

Photo by Google Maps street view