Meet the woman leading Las Vegas hosts’ fight for short-term rental rights

Jacqueline Flores didn’t set out to become a short-term rental activist. She just thought Airbnb was a great way to make some extra money.

Today, Flores is the woman leading the fight against the short-term rental regulations in Clark County, Nevada. And it’s not an easy feat.

The surrounding area around Las Vegas has some of the toughest regulations in the country.

But Flores refuses to give up.

She got involved with STRs the way most advocates do – by renting her personal property out as a side business.

She began renting out her Las Vegas apartment for extra income while she was away visiting family in Los Angeles. The bookings eventually became frequent enough that she realized short-term rental income could help her do something she hadn’t felt comfortable doing while running three furniture stores – buy a house.

“For some strange reason, I thought Airbnb gave me more security,” Flores told REWire Media in an exclusive interview. “That’s why I didn’t buy a house when I had three furniture stores, but I did buy a house when I knew about Airbnb and the income I was able to make on it.”

Years later, that side hustle turned into something entirely different.

Today, Flores is the president and founder of the Greater Las Vegas Short Term Rental Association, one of the groups fighting Clark County over rules governing vacation rentals outside the Las Vegas city limits.

A trip to city hall changed everything

Flores said she didn’t initially realize a license was required to operate a short-term rental. That changed when she learned Las Vegas officials were holding a hearing on the issue and decided to attend.

It was her first exposure to just how contentious short-term rental regulations had become.

She began showing up at meetings and speaking about hosts who used rental income to pay mortgages, supplement retirement income and cover other family expenses.

Around 2019, she realized she needed to step up and do something to help others.

She helped form the Greater Las Vegas Short Term Rental Association with the goal of representing not just investors, but homeowners who rented rooms or relied on short-term rental income to make ends meet.

“I just felt the need that we needed to do something, and that it needed to be in a way that was more grassroots, you know, more natural. I wanted to get people together and have their stories told to the public and to the politicians,” Flores said.

“I already knew at that time that politicians weren’t listening because of the influence of the hotel and resort industry, but I still thought it was important to make those voices heard,” she continued. “We needed the public to see the kind of harm these policies were having on actual people.”

She started talking to other hosts, and finding a way to support each other.

“There was no way that we should just sit back and be intimidated because that’s exactly what the municipalities were doing here. They were intimidating people, shutting them down,” she said.

The fight eventually moved beyond public meetings.

Nevada lawmakers required Clark County to establish a licensing process after removing its short-term rental ban. Flores argues the county responded with regulations designed to make operating difficult, including a 1,000-foot separation requirement between rentals, a 2,500-foot restriction around resort hotels and limits on how many licenses a single owner can hold.

She said some applicants who entered the county’s licensing process in 2022 are still waiting for decisions.

“They were telling you, stop doing short-term renting or you’re going to get fined unless you go get a license,” Flores said. “Well, right now we’re not giving licenses.”

Now the Las Vegas STR fight is in federal court

The association ultimately took its challenge to court, arguing that portions of Clark County’s rules violate property owners’ constitutional rights.

After an earlier state court case, the group filed in federal court. Airbnb later joined the litigation as a plaintiff after its own dispute with Clark County over enforcement of the ordinance.

Flores said the case has already produced two injunctions limiting aspects of county enforcement while the fight continues.

She believes one of the biggest forces shaping Las Vegas’ short-term rental fight is the political influence of the hotel resort industry. In her view, the push for tighter restrictions is less about neighborhood complaints and more about protecting who captures the city’s tourism dollars.

“I think it’s the political influence from the resort hotel industry,” Flores said. “They want the entire tourism money flowing in through them.”

She argues that short-term rentals can serve a different slice of the Las Vegas visitor market, particularly travelers who may find a traditional Strip stay increasingly expensive. While the city’s resort economy has leaned harder into premium events and higher-spending visitors, Flores sees vacation rentals as another way to keep Las Vegas accessible to families and more budget-conscious travelers.

“Let us bring the average people,” she said. “They still come to the Strip. They go to the casino, they go to the restaurants, they watch shows. They do all these things that Las Vegas has to offer.”

That, Flores argues, is why she rejects the idea that short-term rentals and resorts have to be on opposite sides of the tourism economy. A guest sleeping in a vacation rental can still spend heavily on restaurants, entertainment, gambling and attractions. In her view, the two lodging models should be able to coexist.

“It’s a win-win situation,” Flores said.

Flores said she regularly hears the same complaints about short-term rentals — parties, parking, trash and housing affordability — repeated in communities around the country. She argues officials should be required to show data proving those problems are disproportionately tied to STRs before imposing sweeping restrictions.

“We’re fighting in court, but we also have to fight the court of public opinion,” Flores said.

For someone who started simply renting her apartment so she could spend the weekend in Los Angeles, it has become a much bigger fight.