Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 15.2 > Subtitle II > Chapter 28.2 > Article 1 - General Provisions.

• Bar or lounge area: means any establishment or portion of an establishment devoted to the sale and service of alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises and where the sale or service of food or meals is incidental to the consumption of the alcoholic beverages. See Virginia Code 15.2-2820
• Credible witness: means an honest, reliable, and impartial person who personally knows an individual appearing before a notary and takes an oath or affirmation from the notary to confirm that individual's identity. See Virginia Code 47.1-2
• Document: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in perceivable form, including a record as defined in the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (§ Virginia Code 47.1-2
• Educational facility: means any building used for instruction of enrolled students, including but not limited to any day-care center, nursery school, public or private school, institution of higher education, medical school, law school, or career and technical education school. See Virginia Code 15.2-2820
• Electronic: means relating to technology having electrical, digital, magnetic, wireless, optical, electromagnetic, or similar capabilities. See Virginia Code 47.1-2
• electronic notary: means a notary public who has been commissioned by the Secretary of the Commonwealth with the capability of performing electronic notarial acts under § Virginia Code 47.1-2
• electronic seal: means information within a notarized electronic document that confirms the notary's name, jurisdiction, and commission expiration date and generally corresponds to data in notary seals used on paper documents. See Virginia Code 47.1-2
• Electronic signature: means an electronic sound, symbol, or process attached to or logically associated with an electronic document and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the document. See Virginia Code 47.1-2
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Health care facility: means any institution, place, building, or agency required to be licensed under Virginia law, including but not limited to any hospital, nursing facility or nursing home, boarding home, assisted living facility, supervised living facility, or ambulatory medical and surgical center. See Virginia Code 15.2-2820
• in writing: include any representation of words, letters, symbols, numbers, or figures, whether (i) printed or inscribed on a tangible medium or (ii) stored in an electronic or other medium and retrievable in a perceivable form and whether an electronic signature authorized by Virginia Code 1-257
• Includes: means includes, but not limited to. See Virginia Code 1-218
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Locality: means a county, city, or town as the context may require. See Virginia Code 1-221
• notary: means any person commissioned to perform official acts under the title, and includes an electronic notary except where expressly provided otherwise. See Virginia Code 47.1-2
• Person: includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. See Virginia Code 1-230
• Principal: means (i) a person whose signature is notarized or (ii) a person, other than a credible witness, taking an oath or affirmation from the notary. See Virginia Code 47.1-2
• Public place: means any enclosed, indoor area used by the general public, including but not limited to any building owned or leased by the Commonwealth or any agency thereof or any locality, public conveyance or public vehicle, educational facility, hospital, nursing facility or nursing home, other health care facility, library, retail store of 15,000 square feet or more, auditorium, arena, theater, museum, concert hall, or other area used for a performance or an exhibit of the arts or sciences, or any meeting room. See Virginia Code 15.2-2820
• public vehicle: means any air, land, or water vehicle used for the mass transportation of persons in intrastate travel for compensation, including but not limited to any airplane, train, bus, or boat that is not subject to federal smoking regulations. See Virginia Code 15.2-2820
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Record of notarial acts: means a device for creating and preserving a chronological record of notarizations performed by a notary. See Virginia Code 47.1-2
• Recreational facility: means any enclosed, indoor area used by the general public and used as a stadium, arena, skating rink, video game facility, or senior citizen recreational facility. See Virginia Code 15.2-2820
• Restaurant: means any place where food is prepared for service to the public on or off the premises, or any place where food is served. See Virginia Code 15.2-2820
• Satisfactory evidence of identity: means identification of an individual based on (i) examination of one or more of the following unexpired documents bearing a photographic image of the individual's face and signature: a United States Passport Book, a United States Passport Card, a certificate of United States citizenship, a certificate of naturalization, a foreign passport, an alien registration card with photograph, a state issued driver's license or a state issued identification card or a United States military card or (ii) the oath or affirmation of one credible witness unaffected by the document or transaction who is personally known to the notary and who personally knows the individual or of two credible witnesses unaffected by the document or transaction who each personally knows the individual and shows to the notary documentary identification as described in clause (i). See Virginia Code 47.1-2
• Secretary: means the Secretary of the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 47.1-2
• smoking: means the carrying or holding of any lighted pipe, cigar, or cigarette of any kind, or any other lighted smoking equipment, or the lighting, inhaling, or exhaling of smoke from a pipe, cigar, or cigarette of any kind. See Virginia Code 15.2-2820
• State: includes any state, territory, or possession of the United States. See Virginia Code 47.1-2
• State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Theater: means any indoor facility or auditorium, open to the public, which is primarily used or designed for the purpose of exhibiting any motion picture, stage production, musical recital, dance, lecture, or other similar performance. See Virginia Code 15.2-2820
• United States: includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-255
• Verification of fact: means a notarial act in which a notary reviews public or vital records to (i) ascertain or confirm facts regarding a person's identity, identifying attributes, or authorization to access a building, database, document, network, or physical site or (ii) validate an identity credential on which satisfactory evidence of identity may be based. See Virginia Code 47.1-2