Editorial: Ordinance? Try tolerance

Monday, April 18, 2005 | 9:01 a.m.

Day laborers waiting for offers of work on street corners and parking lots are apparently aggravating a lot of people these days. Enough people have complained to prompt Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury to propose an ordinance aimed at reducing their numbers. Las Vegas Councilman Lawrence Weekly says he's also been contacted by residents who are upset about the laborers and demand that something be done. He wants to respond, but isn't quite sure how. "I'm grasping at straws here and not afraid to say I don't have the answers," Weekly told the Sun.

We also see the laborers, congregating along certain streets and on the property of various businesses, such as nurseries, where offers of manual-labor jobs are likely to come their way. But we have never viewed them as a problem, except in the rare instances where they congregate in neighborhoods, on the properties of people who are running labor-intensive businesses from their homes. In these cases, both the homeowners and the laborers are problems, as their activities, such as loading equipment onto double-parked trucks early in the morning, are not compatible with residential life. But out on the streets, and within commercially and industrially zoned areas, we view the laborers as part of the cityscape. They're a fact of life in Las Vegas, as in many other cities in the country.

Although we have never seen evidence of it, some say the laborers litter the areas in which they congregate. If that's true, our bet is that they would stop if someone would simply ask them to. Laborers are not menacing or anti-social -- they simply want a day's pay for a day's work. As many, if not most, are in this country without documentation, the last thing they want to do is draw attention to themselves. We suspect many people are bothered by laborers simply because they fear them, or regard them as unsightly. Yet when was the last time day laborers were in the news for causing trouble? And why should people dressed for a day of hard work be considered unsightly?

Woodbury's proposed ordinance, which is on hold until Metro Police finishes a traffic study, would prohibit drivers from picking up those laborers who wait for work on streets. The ordinance would ostensibly be on the books to prevent accidents and smooth out traffic flow. Those would not be the real reasons, however. In reality, the ordinance would exist only to make life even harder for people whose lives are filled with hardship.

Day laborers are here to stay and we believe they play an important role in our diverse community. Some cities are going to the trouble of building centers in out-of-the way places where laborers are segregated while waiting for job offers. Tolerance is a much better answer.