Opinion: Malibu or Las Vegas? Is the city selling its soul for motel tax revenue?
By Opinion Columnist · Wed Jul 29 2026
By Jo Drummond, Opinion Columnist
At the last City Council meeting, Malibu approved something unprecedented: selling its soul for higher revenues.
The first and only nine-room motel at 22800 Pacific Coast Highway will have no required onsite manager, staffed check-in desk, identifying sign, meaningful guest-registration requirements, or confirmed upgrade to the decades-old septic system beside the beach.
The city is lowering its standards for safety, accountability, housing, code enforcement, and environmental protection. That is not responsible economic development. It is one step toward turning Malibu into Las Vegas.
The motel would have no onsite management, guest registration, or overnight security for the promise of transient occupancy tax revenue. An anonymous motel can invite solicitation, unregistered visitors, trafficking and other illegal activity. Onsite staff cannot prevent every incident, but can deter misconduct, spot problems early and respond immediately. Many residents fear it could become a recurring burden for law enforcement.
Are we willing to overlook unresolved violations and preventable risks simply because transient lodging generates hotel tax revenue?
That is selling Malibu’s standards — and its soul — one exception at a time.
A motel in name only
The council approved converting nine former apartments, now operated as short-term rentals (STRs), into a motel with no basic safeguards.
Malibu Township Council dubbed it the “La Salsa Motel,” partly in jest, because it occupies the former restaurant site — and no one knew what the STR compound-turned-motel was actually called. At the hearing, the applicant called it “Malibu Suites.” Yet the council required no sign, marked entrance, or staffed office, while much of the discussion focused on retaining the familiar La Salsa figure.
Guests, neighbors, and emergency responders should know what the business is, where to enter and who is responsible.
Without those controls, it is neither a properly managed motel nor a lawful STR operation.
Las Vegas is not Malibu
Councilmembers compared the operation to automated lodging in Las Vegas. That may suit a resort city built on round-the-clock transient activity. It should not set Malibu’s standard.
Malibu Suites is the city’s only motel with fewer than 12 rooms, placing it just below the state threshold requiring a resident caretaker when the owner does not live onsite. Instead of closing that gap, the council required only a 24-hour telephone contact — the same basic code requirement that applies to an STR.
Los Angeles, by contrast, requires detailed guest, vehicle, payment, and check-in records, plus immediate onsite assistance for hotel workers from security or trained management. Malibu chose a far weaker approach — closer to automated Las Vegas lodging than accountable, locally managed hospitality.
Residents said no
25 residents submitted written or in-person opposition. None supported the proposal, and Malibu Township Council had limited time to alert the wider community. The City Council approved it anyway.
Malibu needs housing, not more transient rooms
The property is surrounded by multifamily residential uses. Instead of permanently losing nine former apartments, the city could have aligned the parcel with its neighbors and preserved long-term housing.
Malibu’s certified Housing Element must accommodate 79 homes during the 2021–2029 cycle, including 47 affordable to low- and very-low-income households. Yet the motel may charge almost $715 per night — about $21,000 per room each month at full occupancy. The apartments rented for about one-third of that amount.
Malibu should preserve housing, not convert it permanently into higher-priced transient lodging.
Carbon investments must be held accountable
The property is owned by Joseph Praske through Carbon Investments, LP, operated by Matthew Earley of Malibu Suites, LP, and the applicant is Nicolas Gaggero of Pacific Coast Management, LLC.
With ownership, operation, and application split among three parties, where is the accountability? Residents, guests, employees, and emergency responders should know who is responsible — and who will be onsite when trouble occurs.
The operation also uses a citywide management office at 22814 PCH, an adjoining triplex in multifamily zoning. Why is a management operation allowed there while no manager is required at the commercially zoned motel?
Known violations remain unresolved. A 2022 corrective plan requires removal of an illegal hedge blocking parking, circulation, and Fire Department access, but the work remains incomplete. Residents have been denied STR permits for far smaller violations.
Those conditions should have been corrected before approval of a new commercial lodging use.
Approving the project despite these unresolved issues sends a troubling message: Malibu’s rules are negotiable when hotel tax revenue is on the table.
An ancient septic system beside the ocean
The property relies on a decades-old conventional septic system and disposal field. City records document sewage overflow, restaurant-grease impacts, repeated pumping, failed components, and a prior determination that an advanced wastewater treatment system was required.
The old leach field lies beneath the site. If oversaturated during flooding or extreme high tides — with the upcoming El Niño — wastewater could reach neighboring properties, the beach, or ocean. Pumping may postpone an overflow; it does not repair a failing disposal field.
The current Onsite Wastewater Treatment System (OWTS) permit covers only eight bedrooms and 94 drainage fixture units, yet the council approved a nine-room motel. Earlier records listed 10 bedrooms and 113 fixture units.
The city approved the motel without confirming that the permit covers all nine rooms or requiring the advanced system its own records identified as necessary. The result: this ancient system may not be upgraded until it fails.
That should never be the standard beside the ocean. Environmental protection means preventing foreseeable harm — not waiting for sewage to reach a neighbor, the beach, or sea.
Nine illegal STRs are not the only alternative
Joseph Praske has indicated that, if motel conditions become too burdensome, the property may return to nine STRs. But the city attorney stated publicly that operating 100 percent of this apartment complex as short-term rentals is illegal under Malibu law.
An unlawful STR compound cannot justify an inadequately regulated motel. Before any transient use continues, the city should require onsite management, lawful signage, guest registration, completion of the 2022 corrective plan, review of the adjoining office, confirmation of legal unit and bedroom counts, and an advanced OWTS.
Malibu should not sell its soul
The choice is not between this motel and nine illegal STRs. It is whether Malibu will enforce its own standards.
No amount of transient occupancy tax justifies anonymous, unstaffed lodging, unresolved violations, and an ancient septic system by the sea.
Las Vegas may embrace anonymity, automation, and round-the-clock transient activity. Malibu should choose accountability, housing, neighborhood safety, and ocean protection.
Malibu should not become Las Vegas one motel approval at a time. Malibu deserves better.