The following words and phrases when used in this article shall
have the following meanings:
HOTEL
Any public or private hotel, inn, hostelry, tourist home
or house, motel, cottage, apartment, rooming house or other lodging
place within the municipal limits of the City of Crisfield that, for
compensation, offers 10 or more sleeping rooms which furnish sleeping
accommodations to any transient as defined in the definition of "transient"
in this section.
ROOM RENTAL
The total charge made by any hotel for sleeping accommodations
or space furnished to any transient for a period not exceeding four
consecutive months. Room rental does not include any hotel charge
for services or for accommodations other than sleeping accommodations.
If the charge made by a hotel includes any charge for services or
accommodations in addition to a room rental charge for the use of
sleeping space, then the portion of the total charge that represents
only room rental shall be distinctly set out and billed by the hotel
as a separate item. In the absence of any separate billing or identification,
all charges shall be presumed to be a room rental charge for the use
of sleeping accommodations.
TRANSIENT
Any person who pays room rental for occupancy of sleeping
accommodations in a hotel.
No hotel rental tax shall be payable under this article on a
room rental:
A. In any hospital, medical clinic, nursing home, rest home, convalescent
home, or home for aged persons.
B. From a private nonprofit educational organization that:
(1) Is not organized or operated for the purpose of carrying on or promoting
a trade, business, or religious philosophy; but
(2) Principally houses groups of young people exclusively for the purpose
of developing leadership and citizenship skills and promotion of the
general public welfare; or
(3) From a nonprofit charitable, religious, educational, recreational
or literary organization, other than a country club, when the primary
use of the facility is other than housing overnight guests.
The City shall distribute the hotel rental tax collected by
the City under this article to the general fund of the City.