Friday, December 12, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Henderson work cards

With the dawn of the new year, the Nevada Gaming Control Board will take charge of issuing work cards for casino employees throughout the state, making many local regulations that govern licensing for those workers -- not to mention employees in other "licensed" nongaming businesses -- either redundant or, in some instances, burdensome.

With the forthcoming shift to Carson City in mind, officials in most local jurisdictions either eliminated their separate work card mandates entirely, or dramatically limited the vocations to which they apply. On Tuesday, the Henderson City Council is expected to follow suit and delete the work card requirement from the city code.

Good. Work cards have evolved from a means of preventing criminals and other unsavory characters from ripping off tourists to an onerous licensing scheme -- a means of harassing otherwise law-abiding citizens by maintaining official dossiers on them, kept on file by the local police.

Henderson officials said work card processing is a time-consuming affair for its employees. The requirement also offers little in the way of security for employers, since by law, local governments can't use information from federal law-enforcement databases to conduct background checks on applicants for these jobs.

The council should have no qualms in eliminating this unnecessary mandate.