THOMASVILLE — Individuals and organizations wishing to use the Thomasville Municipal Auditorium for less than a day will now have to pay a usage fee.

“We’ve had numerous requests to use the auditorium for public meetings, town hall meetings, employee meetings and etc. that did not require a full day rental,” Karen Smith, director of Downtown Thomasville and Tourism, said. “We had a rate schedule in place for full day rentals but not for less than a day.

“The rate for public meetings, town hall meetings, employee meetings and etc. is $300. This rate covers the use of the facility for up to six hours, auditorium manager and simple lighting and sound set up by the auditorium manager.”

The Thomasville City Council recently gave unanimous final approval to amend the ordinance pertaining to rental fees during its Oct. 26 meeting after previous discussion in workshop and a first reading.

“We have to open up the facility, pay someone to be there to handle the microphones and lights, and clean up after they leave,” council member Roy Campbell said Friday. “We cannot continue to let people use it and not charge them anything because it costs us several hundred dollars just to clean it. What we are trying to do is just get our costs back.”

One day rental fees are still in place. These start at $575 plus $250 cleanup for events where revenue is not collected and goes to $1,325 plus $250 cleanup “commercial 1” for profit-making organizations.

The ordinance is now in effect. This new rate “will apply to everyone wanting to use” the auditorium, Smith said.

Acceptable methods of payment are cash, check or credit card.

“Funds go back to the city to help pay for auditorium costs,” Smith said.

“We had a lot of calls after the newspaper’s town hall meetings started from various people asking about rates, but that has died down for right now,” Smith said. “We had a couple of events on the schedule at the time the city began talking about the fee, but those have already happened. I expect calls to pick up again in the new year.”