As used in this Chapter:
(a) "Agent" means any duly authorized person, firm, company, organization, or governmental unit authorized to perform any function in order the facilitate the provisions of this Chapter.
(b) "Assistants" or "Employee" means any person who works for the City for wages, salary, commissions or other type of compensation.
(c) "Auditor" means the City Finance Director and any of his assistants, employees, and/or agents designated to assist in administering and enforcing the collection of the excise tax on lodging of transient guests herein levied and imposed, who are hereby assigned all of the duties and authority by this Council to administer and enforce the collection of such tax.
(d) "Council" means the legislative authority of the City of Garfield Heights.
(e) "City" means the City of Garfield Heights.
(f) "Consumer" means the person, whether or not a guest, who pays or is obligated to pay the rent for the lodging of transient guest(s) in a hotel or motel.
(g) "Excise Tax" means the tax made by the City on transactions by which lodgings by a hotel or motel is or is to be furnished to transient guests.
(h) "Hotel" or "Motel" means every establishment kept, used, maintained, advertised, or held out to the public to be a place where sleeping accommodations are offered to guests, in which five or more rooms are used for the accommodation of such guests, whether such rooms are in one or several structures.
(i) "Lodging" means one (1) or two (2) or more rooms in which sleeping accommodations are provided for a transient guest(s).
(j) "Person" includes individuals, receivers, assignees, trustees in bankruptcy, estates, firms, partnerships, companies, associations, joint-stock companies, joint ventures, clubs, societies, corporations, tenants, owners, lessees or licensees and their agents, heirs, the State and its political subdivisions, and combinations of individuals of any form.
(k) "Premises" includes any real property or portion thereof upon which any person engages in selling tangible personal property at retail or making retail sales and also includes any real property or portion thereof designated for, or devoted to, or used in conjunction with the business engaged in by such person.
(l) "Rent" means the aggregate value in money or anything paid or delivered, or promised to be paid or delivered for hotel and/or motel lodging, without any deduction for the cost of labor, service, property use, interest discount paid after the price is paid or agreed to be paid, or any other expense. "Rent" does not include:
(1) Amounts refunded for lodging not used, when the rent, or any portion thereof, and tax are refunded by cash or credit: nor
(2) Cash discounts allowed at the time the lodging is furnished or contracted to be furnished;
(3) Refundable deposits, until such deposits are actually applied to rents due and owing.
(m) "Tax" means, except where otherwise specified, the tax levied and imposed herein.
(n) "Transient Guest(s)" means person(s) occupying a room or rooms for sleeping accommodations for less than thirty (30) consecutive days.
(o) "Vendor" means a person who owns or operates a hotel or motel that furnishes lodging to guests and includes the agents and employees of such person who performs the functions on behalf of the vendor. "Vendor" also includes the owner, lessee, and mortgagor in possession of the real estate upon whose premises the vendor operates or has operated a hotel or motel, when the vendor is or becomes a non-resident of Ohio or conceals his/her whereabouts or property. The vendor shall have an Ohio Retail Sales Tax Vendors License in order to operate a business pursuant to Ohio R.C. 5739.17.
(Ord. 81-2002. Passed 11-11-02.)