In Pacific Grove, it’s war – and legal battles – over short-term rentals.

In America’s Last Hometown, you’ll find any number of gorgeous homes with views of the Monterey Bay. But right now, there’s one Pacific Grove place in particular making the news.

It’s known as Seadance. The three-bedroom, two-bath contemporary offers panoramic views of the ocean. In June, this piece of the American Dream could have been yours for $17,750 for the entire month, or in April and May, you could have paid just $7,000 for the month. For most of the rest of the year, the costs run anywhere from $350 a night to $500 a night, or $2,450 a week to $7,000 a week, depending on when you visit.

But as of April 2019, according to the property’s listing on sanctuaryvacationrentals.com, the home will only be available for monthly rentals. That’s because when the city of Pacific Grove held a lottery to choose which properties would be licensed as short-term rentals, or STRs, Seadance owners Bill and Sue Hobbs came out holding the short end of the stick.

And it’s why they and Donald and Irma Shirkey, another couple who own a short-term rental and who also lost in that lottery, enlisted the help of the Goldwater Institute (Twitter bio: “We’re working daily in state courtrooms, legislatures and communities nationwide to empower people to live freer, happier lives”) and filed a civil rights complaint against the city of Pacific Grove.

“Without the income we get from short-term rentals, we may not be able to afford to keep the home that’s been in my family for decades, the one we carefully restored,” Sue Hobbs wrote in an opinion piece that ran July 4 on the San Francisco Chronicle website. Hobbs, a retired social worker, grew up in the home, inherited the property when her mother died and has run it as a short-term rental since 2013.

In her op-ed, Hobbs decried the ham-handed nature of the lottery process that took place in May. In all, 51 other homeowners who previously ran short-term rentals also lost their permits.

“It was completely random – actually conducted on the kind of ping-pong ball machine usually reserved for bingo tournaments – meaning responsible homeowners could lose their permits while irresponsible ones who’d received many complaints might be allowed to keep theirs,” Hobbs writes, noting she and her husband had never had complaints about their rental. “We shouldn’t have to wonder about our home’s future because the city decided to give away our property rights.”

Here’s the thing. Whether the Hobbses received complaints or not, if short-term rentals are degrading residential neighborhoods, the city has a right to limit the activity.

Matt Miller, an attorney with the Goldwater Institute working on the case, maintains cities already have avenues to control STR activity, and the P.G. lottery penalizes previously licensed property owners who have been acting in good faith.

“Nobody wants to live next to a party house,” says Miller, who also filed suits against Miami and Seattle at the same time as the Shirkey and Hobbs action. “Responsible homeowners should have the right to use their property in this way. There are tools at the city’s disposal and they can police nuisances if there’s noise, or parking violations or other restrictions. They can use the threat of revoking the license. There are ways to protect neighbors.”

As of March 30, there were 290 STRs in P.G., with 275 located in residentially zoned districts; of those, 197 were outside the coastal zone. The lottery limits the number of STRs to 250.

A citizen-driven measure that garnered enough signatures to make the November ballot seeks to further restrict STRs, limiting them only to the coastal zone or commercially zoned districts. While the Hobbs home features ocean views, it’s technically outside the coastal zone; the Shirkeys’ home is in the coastal zone.

“Voters need to decide if this is something the community needs, if they want to see their neighborhoods allow this in exchange for some money,” says P.G. resident Luke Coletti, who spearheaded the initiative. “Yes, STRs generate revenue for the city, but there are a host of problems that come along. There’s never been a cost-benefit analysis – it’s only been about the benefits.”

The complete verbiage of that initiative appears in the paper this week on page 52.

MARY DUAN writes The Local Spin for the Weekly. Reach her at maryrduan@gmail.com