Amsterdam officials have closed down 30 illegal hotels and lodgings over the past three weeks and fined their owners a total of €216,000, housing alderman Laurens Ivens said on Thursday.

One of the addresses was offering accommodation to 56 people and did not meet fire regulations, Ivens said. ‘Illegal hotels are reducing the housing stock, causing a nuisance and posing a fire risk,’ Ivens said. ‘We have to put an end to it.’

The city council is planning to pay extra attention to the misuse of housing in the coming months, the alderman said. At the end of August, the Volkskrant reported that the council’s rules for renting your home out to tourists via websites like Airbnb were being widely flouted.