A. “Department” means the city finance department.

B. “Director” means the director of the city finance department or the director’s designee.

C. “Knowingly” means and includes the state of mind of a person when the person knows of or is aware of the existence of this chapter or of the tax imposed by this chapter.

D. “Operator” means a person who owns, operates or controls any facility in which any transient lodging is offered for occupancy for compensation.

E. “Person” means all persons, both natural and artificial.

F. “Quarter” means one (1) of the four (4) consecutive three- (3-) month periods in a calendar year, the first (1st) beginning on January first (1st) each year.

G. “Room” means any room, suite of rooms, facility or structure, or any part thereof, whether temporary or permanent, which is rented or offered for rent for use as a residence, dwelling, sleeping place, place of lodging or other use auxiliary to such residential, dwelling, sleeping or other lodging use and includes bed-and-breakfast operations; provided however, pursuant to BMC 4.14.030(A)(2) and (3), “room” does not include any such room used exclusively as part of a substantially different business, such as a hospital room, patient treatment room or a university dormitory room, where the primary purpose of the business is other than providing meals, lodging, adventures, entertainment or recreation.

H. “Tax” means the lodging business tax levied under this chapter.

I. “Tax return” means the quarterly report to be submitted to the department as required by BMC 4.14.050.

J. “Transient lodging” means rooms offered or made available to persons for occupancy on a daily basis or for a shorter or longer period of time, but does not include rooms that are available only for occupancy of forty-two (42) or more continuous days under a written rental agreement.

K. “Violates” and “violation” mean and include any failure of a person for any reason to comply with a requirement or duty imposed by this chapter. [Ord. 97-22 § 2.]