When used in this article, the following terms shall have the respective meanings assigned to them by this section:
(a) "Director of Finance" means the Director of Finance of the Municipality or his duly authorized representative.
(b) "Consideration paid" or "consideration" means the amount received in money, credits, property or other consideration for or in exchange for the right to occupy a hotel room as herein defined.
(c) "Consumer" means a person who pays the consideration for the use or occupancy of a hotel room. "Consumer" shall not be construed to mean the government of the United States of America, its agencies or instrumentalities, or the government of this State or political subdivisions thereof.
(d) "Hotel" means any facility, building or buildings, publicly or privately owned, in which the public may, for a consideration, obtain sleeping accommodations. "Hotel" includes but is not limited to, boardinghouses, hotels, motels, inns, courts, lodges, cabins and tourist homes. "Hotel" includes State, County and City parks offering accommodations as herein set forth. "Hotel" shall not be construed to mean any hospital, sanitarium, extended care facility, nursing home or university or college housing unit or any facility providing fewer than three hotel rooms, nor any tent, trailer or camper campsites; provided, that where a university or college housing unit provides sleeping accommodations for the general nonstudent public for a consideration, "hotel" shall, if otherwise applicable, apply to such accommodations for the purposes of this tax.
(e) "Hotel operator" means the person who is the proprietor of a hotel, whether in the capacity of owner, lessee, mortgagee in possession, licensee, trustee in possession, trustee in bankruptcy, receiver, executor or in any other capacity. Where the hotel operator performs his functions through a managing agent of any type or character other than an employee, the managing agent shall also be deemed a hotel operator for the purpose of this article and shall have the same duties and liabilities as his principal. Compliance with the provisions of this article by either the principal or the managing agent shall, however, be considered to be compliance by both.
(f) "Hotel room" means any room or suite of rooms or other facility affording sleeping accommodations to the general public and situated within a hotel. "Hotel room" shall not be construed to mean a banquet room, meeting room or any other room not primarily used for, or in conjunction with, sleeping accommodations.
(g) "Person" means any individual, firm, partnership, joint venture, association, syndicate, social club, fraternal organization, joint stock company, receiver, corporation, guardian, trust, business trust, trustee, committee, estate, executor, administrator or any other group or combination acting as a unit.
(h) "Tax", "taxes" or "this tax" means the hotel occupancy tax authorized by this article.
(i) "Taxing authority" means the Municipality of Barboursville, levying or imposing the tax authorized by this article.
(j) "Taxpayer" means any person liable for the tax authorized by this article.
(Ord. 88-10. Passed 10-18-88.)