Police hope to see more rooftop digits

Thursday, May 4, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

Metro Police would like your address.

And they'd like it in 5-foot-tall numbers on your roof.

About 20 years ago, police lent large stencils to Las Vegas residents who would, in turn, emblazon their house numbers across their rooftops to help police helicopters scan the city from on high.

The rooftop-numbering initiative seemed to peak in the mid-1990s, just as population growth and increasing civic demands surpassed the police department's ability, or willingness, to run a stencil-lending library, Metro spokesman Bill Cassel says.

Since then, police have quietly hoped residents might continue the practice, assisting Metro helicopters - the valley's only arm of airborne law enforcement - by continuing to paint their rooftops, or at least pay someone else to do so.

As valley streets have sprawled farther into the desert, Metro's hope hasn't materialized.

"In the newer areas, you look down and you can't see numbers," Cassel says.

While rooftop numbering is required of all commercial buildings and multifamily complexes in Las Vegas, municipal codes in Clark County, Henderson and North Las Vegas are mute on the matter.

And nowhere is it written that homeowners must do what would help police helicopters most: paint numbers on the roofs they sleep under. Instead, Metro's Web site appeals to civic goodwill by pointing out how rooftop numbering can assist in the apprehension of criminals.

The site then directs interested parties to David Hendrickson's one-man, professional rooftop numbering business with a telephone number Hendrickson says is ages out of date.

For more than 10 years, Hendrickson has carved a part-time job out of painting roofs for regular commercial construction clients who have no choice and no problem paying him $75 per project to ensure a multimillion-dollar building is up to code.

Las Vegas building inspectors are Hendrickson's bread-and-butter brigade, and were it not for city rooftop regulations, the 47-year-old father of two said that he'd be out of a "dirt-simple" job that brings in as much as $900 in a good week.

Individual homeowners have always been a hard sell, says Hendrickson, who rarely paints residences and has been chased off properties for going door to door with the suggestion.

"If they don't have a choice, they'll do it," he says. "If they do have a choice, they'll ignore it."

Even if a homeowner agreed to pay for rooftop numbering, Hendrickson's preferred aesthetic - 5-foot, bright blue numbers - might be problematic in communities where paint colors can spark controversy.

Diann Spoon, a member of the Summerlin South Community Association Design Review Board, says the issue has never come up but would probably require a meeting to address standards of decorum.

Meanwhile, Metro remains hopeful that valley residents will make their addresses readable to airborne police or emergency pilots, even if it means paying for something Hendrickson says won't be readable from street level.

When you see them from the ground, he says, the numbers don't make any sense at all.