As used in this chapter:
(a) "Hotel" means hotel, motel, motor inn and 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.
(b) "Transient guest" means natural persons who physically occupy a room or rooms for sleeping accommodations for less than thirty consecutive days.
(c) "Vendor" means the person who is the owner or operator of the hotel and includes the agents and employees of such person who perform the functions of the vendor on his behalf. 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, when the vendor is or becomes a non-resident of Ohio or conceals his whereabouts or his property.
(d) "Excise tax" means the tax levied by the City on transactions by which lodging by a hotel is or is to be furnished to transient guests.
(e) "Person" includes individuals, receivers, assignees, trustees in bankruptcy, estates, firms, partnerships, associations, joint-stock companies, joint ventures, clubs, societies, corporations, the State and its political subdivisions, and combinations of individuals of any form.
(f) "Rent" means the aggregate value in money or anything paid or delivered, or promises to be paid or delivered for hotel lodging, without any deduction for the cost of labor, service, property used, interest discount paid or allowed after the price is paid or agreed to be paid, or any other expense. Rent does not include amounts refunded for lodging not used when the full rent and tax are refunded by cash or credit, nor cash discounts allowed at the time the lodging is furnished or contracted to be furnished.
(g) "Director of Finance" or "Finance Director" means the Director of Finance of the City.
(Ord. 1993-40. Passed 4-5-93.)