Less than two weeks before San Franciscans could vote to severely restrict Airbnb in the short-term rental company's hometown, new ads touting the benefits of the company's tax payments have popped up on Muni bus shelters.

Rather than inspiring gratitude, however, the messages — apparently from Airbnb — have some San Franciscans pissed off at what appears to be a passive aggressive stance towards funding public services. 

San Francisco State assistant professor Martha Kenney spotted a public library-themed ad on a bus shelter near the Ingleside library.

It reads:

Dear Public Library System,

We hope you use some of the $12 million in hotel taxes to keep the library open later.

Love, 
Airbnb

Not charmed, Kenney posted a pic on Facebook, adding: 

Dear Airbnb,

I'm happy to hear that you paid your taxes this year. I did too! Isn't it awesome? However, I've crunched some numbers and I have some bad news for you. Out of your $12 mil of hotel tax, only 1.4% percent goes to the SF Public Libraries. So that's $168,000. Divided by the 868 library staff, we have $193 per person. Assuming each employee works 5 days per week minus holidays, this is $0.78 per employee per day. Since that's significantly under San Francisco minimum wage ($12.25/hr), I doubt that your hotel tax can keep the libraries open more than a minute or two later.

However, had you donated that $8 million you spent fighting Proposition F directly to the public libraries you love so much, that could have made a bigger difference.

Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20!

Love,

Martha Kenney (San Francisco resident)

Another ad, on a similar theme — the equivalent of being rude to a public worker and then yelling, "I PAY YOUR SALARY" — was spotted near the Twitter building on Market. 
It's possible that Airbnb is being slyly culture-jammed by some of the controversial corporation's many opponents, but it's hard to tell.

We emailed Airbnb spokesman Christopher Nulty to ask whether the library ad was "real." He responded by email, "as opposed to a fake one :)"

A follow up email, explaining that we were in fact seeking confirmation as to whether the ads are actually from Airbnb received the following response: "Are you seriously writing on this?"

Nulty did not respond to another follow up email. 

Wow.

A photo posted by Eric Eberhardt (@idontlikewords) on Oct 21, 2015 at 1:02pm PDT

While the ads seem intended to inspire gratitude in San Franciscans for the transient occupancy taxes that Airbnb (finally) started remitting to the city this year after several years of avoidance, they mostly seem to be pissing people off.

Kenney's post has been shared more than 400 times on Facebook, and San Franciscans are taking to Twitter as well to express their displeasure with the $25 billion company. 

Dear @Airbnb These passive-aggressive bus kiosk ads are *not cool* No love, the librarians https://t.co/rdo39E7sdz pic.twitter.com/Lf3TCAYYbw

— jessamyn west (@jessamyn) October 21, 2015

The advertising campaign, if it is indeed real, is touching a nerve because San Franciscans are currently experiencing the deluge of Airbnb's $8 million+ campaign to defeat Proposition F, which would more strictly regulate short term rentals.

One of Airbnb's talking points in the campaign is that the passage of Prop. F would decrease the amount of hotel tax San Francisco receives every year from Airbnb-facilitated rentals.  

But the ads don't specifically mention Prop. F, possibly because SFMTA's advertising policy prohibits advertising that "concerns a declared political candidate or ballot measure scheduled for consideration by the voters in an upcoming election or an initiative petition submitted to the San Francisco Department of Elections" on buses and bus shelters.

Which means that however much Airbnb is spending on these ads, it's not part of the $8 million+ No on Prop. F campaign. It's just a friendly reminder from your neighbor, Airbnb. 

UPDATE: Airbnb has confirmed that the ads are indeed real and says that it plans to take them down. We've reached out to SFMTA to attempt to confirm the cancellation. Here's Airbnb's statement: 

“The intent was to show the hotel tax contribution from our hosts and guests, which is roughly $1 million per month. It was the wrong tone and we apologize to anyone who was offended. These ads are being taken down immediately.”

UPDATE #2: Here are pics of some more of the ads. Given its concern for arts education, we're not sure why Airbnb would want to waste its tax dollars on free parking, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Chill billboard, @airbnb pic.twitter.com/4QuRJSaG0N

— ｊｄｅｎ (@jden415) October 22, 2015

@JesseThorn @Airbnb going after all underpaid public servants pic.twitter.com/6cJWYhqAjY

— Robert J Fangman (@FangmanRob) October 22, 2015

@kimmaicutler @gamoid @ashleymayer pic.twitter.com/Wl7bEtHtIH

— Kyle Huey (@khuey_) October 22, 2015

@juliacarriew @khuey_ @njudah Wonder if they're going to take down these giant billboards above Union Sq. too pic.twitter.com/cr79pdbDgm

— Adam N. Mayer (@AdamNMayer) October 22, 2015

@sarahjeong There's one about planting trees at Masonic & Haight. pic.twitter.com/9n8NDfsCvh

— Chris Arvin (@meinhyperspeed) October 22, 2015

And another via Facebook. 



UPDATE #3: A few more photos of the ads have been sent in by email. This one was spotted at Mission and Alemany by a reader who writes, "The arrogance and snarky tone had me hopping mad! I was on the fence about prop F until I saw this." 


And this one is gracing the Muni stop at Cyril Magnin and 5th:

#airbnb ad at 5th St and Cyril Magnin. They're winning at going viral. That's about it. pic.twitter.com/rUftp5nlBy

— Nick Buonfiglio (@nickybseen) October 22, 2015

If you see any others, drop us a line at jwong@sfweekly.com.