Unions laud work-card ruling: Many hotel workers excused from background checks

Adrienne Packer

Wednesday, June 27, 2001 | 10:56 a.m.

The Clark County Liquor and Gaming Board approved an ordinance this morning that excuses many hotel workers from police background checks to obtain work cards.

The board, which consists of the seven county commissioners, voted 6-0 to approve the revamped ordinance, triggering an outburst of applause from more than 100 union members who packed the Clark County Commission chambers. Commissioner Bruce Woodbury was not present.

The Culinary Union and the American Civil Liberties Union for months have argued that it is unnecessary for some hotel-casino employees to acquire work cards. They successfully urged the business license division to exclude maids, bartenders and bellhops from the ordinance.

Work cards are documents provided by Metro Police and local police departments that show employees who work in privileged industries like liquor and gaming have been investigated and have a clean record.

The new ordinance requires only a casino's "key employees" -- workers who have direct access to safes and casino cash -- to obtain work cards.

ACLU representatives, who have publicly complained they were not invited to work with Metro Police and the county in creating the new law, said they were pleased with it, nevertheless.

"This is a good, solid step forward, and we applaud them for taking the action," ACLU attorney Allen Lichtenstein said.

Business license officials were most reluctant to excuse maids from obtaining work cards. They argued that maids might not have access to casino cash, but they have access to guests' room, where valuables often are stored.

Lichtenstein said the ACLU is most concerned about the constitutionality of the work card system. He said the government is regulating positions like bartenders and bellhops without justifying why they are privileged positions.

The county's work card requirements outside of the casino industry are still too broad, he said.

ACLU officials have also expressed concern about what happens to the information that police retrieve from employees during the process.

"The process still has a lot of problems in terms of what happens to that information and the cost of the process," Lichtenstein said. "We believe the entire work card system can be fixed so that it is constitutional."