It's not the rights of the minority, in this case. In the jurisdiction in question, there is no legal right to rent your apartment to short-term guests. Nor do I perceive a moral right to do so.
It would be more accurate to say: The broad economic interests of property owners in general outweigh the narrower economic interests of people who would like to offer short-term accommodations.
> there is no legal right to rent your apartment to short-term guests
I am just trying to understand the situation. I don't see what is the difference between me being in the apartment vs somebody else being there. About taxation, we already pay income taxes. The property owner already pays property taxes. If people who rent out their apartments don't disclose said rent money in their income tax, yes I'd say it is scummy that people are getting out of paying taxes when my income tax gets reported/deducted at the source.
They probably should get hit with a huge fine for tax avoidance.
Humor me for a second. If short-term renters were quiet and non-aggressive, would you still have a problem with that? How does the hotel tax on short-term renting solve anything? Can people be loud and obnoxious because they have paid the hotel tax?
> I don't see what is the difference between me being in the apartment vs somebody else being there
There's a big difference: The landlord has researched and approved you, but not your guests. The landlord probably did a criminal background check on you, and quite possibly a search in a tenant database. They're not just concerned about deadbeats who don't pay their rent. They're also concerned about damage to the apartment, disturbance to other tenants, criminal activity, etc.
> If short-term renters were quiet and non-aggressive, would you still have a problem with that?
If you could guarantee that short-term renters wouldn't cause a problem, then that would be fine with me. (I am a landlord.) But how could you possibly guarantee that?
> Can people be loud and obnoxious because they have paid the hotel tax?
In that case, the building is officially a hotel. Which means all its occupants signed up for what hotel stays potentially entail, such as loud neighbors. Likewise, the local government approved the plan to put a hotel there, knowing full well the potential problems.
In an apartment building, none of this is true. The people living there didn't sign up for hotel living. Nor did the local government determine that transient occupants would be acceptable for the neighborhood.
It would be more accurate to say: The broad economic interests of property owners in general outweigh the narrower economic interests of people who would like to offer short-term accommodations.