[Michlib-l] "For Profit" meeting room use RESPONSES

[Dave Ewick]

For Profit Groups use of Meeting Rooms Question

Original question:  Who allows "for profit" groups to use their meeting
rooms? 
RESPONSES:  


Petoskey does. $50 per use. 
 
Muskegon:  We currently do not allow our two meeting rooms to be
reserved by for profit groups, with a weird exception for out of town
lawyers doing depositions for local residents that was grandfathered in
here years ago. I have realized this summer that we have 6-8 tutors who
are using the room for paid tutoring services, but the parents are
reserving the room as "study time" for their kids. So we need to redo a
policy and I'd like to figure out a way to allow for-profit small
businesses like tutoring to use the room. I'm stumped for ideas at the
moment so your query is timely!
 
Berkley:  We do. Policy& rental form at:
http://www.berkleymich.org/departments/library/docs/Lib.Meeting.Room.Rental.0217.pdf
 
Hart: We allow anyone to use our rooms for free. First come, first
serve.
 
Tecumseh: We allow 'for profit' groups to use our meeting rooms for a
$25.00 'donation'.
 
Romulus: We allow for-profits to use the room but we charge. See policy
below. The 34th District Court building is located right behind the
library so we get a lot of requests from law firms for depositions and
such. It is a good source of income.
 
RENTAL OF LIBRARY MEETING ROOM - Individuals or organizations not able
to meet the criteria for free use of the library Meeting Room may be
eligible to rent the Meeting Room for a fee, subject to a determination
that the proposed use is appropriate to the space, and not disruptive to
regular library functions. Final determination regarding eligibility to
rent the Meeting Room rests with the Library Director or his/her
designee. Rental fees, if applicable, are non-refundable. Meeting Room
rental fees will be charged in accordance with the following fee
schedule adopted by the Board of Trustees.
http://www.romuluslibrary.org/using-the-library/meeting-room/ 
 
Sterling Heightsdoes not allow for profits.
 
Farmington:  Our meeting rooms which we rent out are available only to
those who have a library card with us. We have one price for non-profit
groups and another price for businesses (for profit groups).
 
Addison Twp. Library allows it. It brings an enormous amount of kids
and parents in during the summer months.
 
Ferndale: We let local businesses and members of the Ferndale Area
Chamber rent our meeting rooms for a fee. Mostly, just to have meetings
or training.
 
Brightondoes allow this. We are also currently revising our policy, so
your results will be interesting to see.
 
Orion Twpdoes, we charge them $35/hour. Otherwise they follow the same
policies as the non-profits.
 
Otsego: We do not, but we have only one multipurpose room that serves
as library programming space and community meeting space. I will be
interested in seeing your tabulation of responses, as we will have more
than one meeting area when our library expansion is complete. 
 
Cutler Memorial (St. Louis, MI) - We do, for a $25 fee, so we rarely
have any takers. We've had lawyers use the room for depositions before,
but that's about it.
 
Benton Harbor: We allow anyone to rent our meeting room as long as they
follow our meeting room policy. It is also $20 an hour to rent our
meeting room (which is actually our library auditorium).
 
Kalamazoo:  We do at KPL. We have 2 different reservation rates:
Nonprofit: 2 hour blocks - $25.00 each and For Profit: 1-4 hours -
$150.00 with 5-8 hours - $250.00. We also charge a flat rate of $25.00
if anyone is bringing food into the rooms. We do not rent rooms for the
purposes of private parties. All meetings must be free to attend and
open to the public, even those reservations made by for-profit
agencies.
 
Eau Claire- We mostly have birthday parties and bridal or baby showers.
However, for several years we did have Weight Watchers meeting in our
room every week. My board felt that providing a place for the meeting
was beneficial to the community. They did pay our normal rate for using
the room. Their attendance dropped and they decided to consolidate their
meetings, so no longer use our room. Other than that, we have not had
any 'for profit' groups asking to rent our room.
 
Commerce Twp: We allow for profit groups for things that DO NOT involve
selling their product to the public. IE, training, staff meetings, etc.
Have recently approved a new assisted living place in town to use space
for a program aimed at social workers. That one was iffy.
 
With the move to the new building I purposefully lightened up on rules.
More stuff allowed on bulletin boards etc. OTOH our senior center is
being expanded and renovated and starting next week several of their
daily programs - tai chi, euchre, bridge etc will be happening in our
big room. Except the whittlers, they'll be back in maintenance where
there is no carpet.
 
In Minnesota we charged for "for profit" use of our meeting rooms.
Still free to non profit etc.
Presque Isle: We do but they have to put a deposit down:  “All
government organizations, commercial, for-profit organizations and
“special occasions” must pay a $150 refundable deposit. If it becomes
necessary, the deposit will be retained by the Presque Isle District
Library for any repair of facilities or special cleaning needed after
use. Fees may be applicable based upon the discretion of the Library
Director.”
Dearborn:  Our small meeting rooms are available for free on a first
come, first served basis. Typically we don’t ask people why they want to
use it—as long as they use if for some sort of meeting. At least one
person must be 18 years old or older. Now, if they want to reserve the
room in advance, then they have to pay for the room. Again, as long as
they are using it for a meeting – we don’t make them swear they are a
non-profit. Our large conference rooms and our auditorium – we always
charge a fee for those.
Garden City Library does not have meeting rooms, so we do not allow for
profit, or not-for-profit groups to use them.  ��
Canton: We rent to for-profit groups for a fee; see our Meeting Room
Policy
(
https://www.cantonpl.org/sites/default/files/CPL_Meeting_Room_Policy.pdf)
 and Application
(
https://www.cantonpl.org/sites/default/files/CPL_Meeting_Room_App.pdf)
for details. https://www.cantonpl.org/policies 
East Lansing: We do, but we charge them a little bit more than our
non-profit/resident rate. 
https://www.elpl.org/meeting-room-reservations/
Rochester Hills:  We do not.
Dearborn Heights: I allow for profit groups, but if they hold a
"business" class, it has to be open to the public, and they cannot
charge for services.
 
St. Ignace: We do. $20.00 an hour. We have a small kitchen that groups
can use for an additional $20.
 
Livonia: We allow "for profit" groups to use our rooms, but we charge
them more than we charge the non-profit groups. 
 
Northfield Twp.: Yes. We allow any business, group or organization as
long as the person requesting is a patron in good standing. 
 
Hartland's Cromaine Library permits for-profit and family/personal use
of its meeting rooms, now expanded to three. 
https://www.cromaine.org/reserve-room 
 
Royal Oak: We do and it’s a big difference too. Policy says that we ask
for proof of non-profit status. The thinking is that profit making
companies do not have to prove their for-profit status because they are
paying at the top tier. Non-profits are paying less so they have to
prove their non-profit status. 
As you can imagine a lot of for-profit orgs try to tell us they're
really non-profit because they want the lower rate
 
We have two rooms to rent : the Youth activity room is $75 for profit
$50 for non-profit orgs. The larger, nicer Auditorium is $125 and $75
respectively. This is for 3 hrs.  For 3-5 hrs the rates are Youth
activity room $125 and $75 The Auditorium is $250 and $125
 
Hillsdale: We do but we charge. $25 for 4 hours. If they want the large
room it is $75.for 4 hours. 
 
Hamburg: We allow for-profit use for a fee of $25.00 per hour. Room use
is free to non-profits. 
 
Blissfield: We allow it with some stipulations: If they are using it
for a meeting or staff training, they operate with the same rules as
non-profits. If they are charging admission, we double the fees. They
cannot set up a store front and sell goods or services out of the
auditorium. We have had some gray areas: insurance companies that hold
“public service” presentations on changes to health insurance or a
health services company that wanted to talk about services for seniors.
After some discussion, we allowed the insurance company in at the
standard rate but they could not promote their own agency. The health
care firm wanted to promote their own services, so we charged them
double, which they paid without blinking. 
 
Dexter: I guess it depends on what you mean by 'for profit.' We do make
our meeting room space available to businesses for training, management
meetings, planning, etc. but we do not allow solicitation. So, the local
Wendy's, providing food safety training for employees would be approved,
whereas the Tupperware vendor could not hold a 'party' Our attorney
(Anne Seurynck) always comes down on the side of judging acceptable
behaviors rather than making decisions based on content or the type of
group requesting access. 

Having said that, I am sure that some groups lie to us. They shut the
door as a way of psychologically deterring their events from being "open
to all members of the public" and there probably have been instances of
solicitation. Unfortunately, we don't have enough staff to monitor the
entirety of each meeting. We make an initial judgement at reservation.
Yesterday, I had to turn down a wedding shower request which the person
assured us would be open to the public. We have made a few denials
related to business requests as well. If they slip through, we just
respond with keeping their deposit and barring them from further meeting
room use. 
http://www.dexter.lib.mi.us/index.php/about/library-policies/13-about-us/library-policies/52-meeting-room-policy

 
Novi Public Library rents their rooms to both for profit and non-profit
groups. We charge according to resident vs. nonresident. We don’t care
about profit/nonprofit. The cost is based on if they are Novi residents
or have a representative who lives/works in Novi who completes the
application and will take responsibility for the space, or nonresidents.
I’ve attached a copy of our application and pricing for your reference.
http://www.novilibrary.org/About-Us/Meeting-Rooms.aspx 
 
Flat Rock: Good afternoon. We allow for profit groups to meet in our
meeting rooms, but charge them $50 to use the room. 
 
Bad Axe: We allow for-profit groups to use our room, but we charge
$50.
 
Charlevoix Public Library - Our policy includes Fee Based Groups. Below
is a pertinent section of the policy: 
A. A Fee Based Group is defined as a group whose business purpose or
whose meeting’s purpose is to sell products or services for enterprise
or a group hosting a private function. 
B. A Not-for-profit Group will be defined as a group that does not meet
the definition of Fee Based Group (above, section IIA), whose meeting is
open to the public, and whose meeting is posted on the public kiosk and
calendar. A Not-for-profit Group will have use of all meeting room space
at no charge during regular library hours. 
C. A Fee Based Group using the Computer Lab, Community Meeting Room A,
or Community Meeting Room B, shall be charged $25 per hour. If both
sides, A and B, of the Community Meeting Room are reserved, the charge
is $50 per hour. 
 
Hackley Public Library does, but they're fourth priority -- 1) library,
2) Friends, 3) local nonprofit and government, 4) for profit.  We're
making some money on them, particularly on attorneys scheduling
depositions.
 
Bacon Memorial: We allow for profit groups to use our meeting rooms. We
charge $50 for up to four hours of use. The most common usage is one of
our rooms being booked for a deposition. We get this request a couple of
times a year.
Tecumseh District Library does allow for-profit groups in our meeting
rooms. We charge $25.00 per day for use of the rooms for a profit
organization. We have an extra space on our application form where
patrons have to check if they are profit or non-profit.
Imlay City: We allow meeting room use by "for profits" here. It was a
longstanding policy from when the library was formed, as our city is
very entrepreneurship & small business oriented, and there is really
nowhere else for folks to go. We charge $10 an hour for room rental by
"for profits", it’s free to others.
 
Tamarack District Library - We allow for profit use, for a fee.
Nonprofits may have the fee waived at my discretion (I nearly always
waive the fee).
 Thanks to all who answered. There is quite a range! Here are my
opinions:  Many of us sell ourselves short when compared to what hotels
charge for similar services. Small communities may not have other
choices, and the library doesn't want to over charge.  Larger libraries
should at least break even on costs.  (room setup & cleanup,
audio-visual services, security, etc.) 

David L. Ewick, MLS, MS
City Librarian
Southfield Public Library
26300 Evergreen
Southfield, Michigan 48076
248 796-4300
dewick at southfieldlibrary.org 
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail. 


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