Building May Be Drab, but Clientele Is Colorful

Each morning, five days a week, a drab, concrete building bulges with security guards, strippers, child care workers and the occasional dog handler.

Cocktail waitresses, private investigators, bartenders and locksmiths line up next to child pornographers and felons convicted of murder, violent robbery and kidnapping.

They’ve all come to the Fingerprint Bureau.

It’s a bureaucratic oddity that draws the unusual mix. Some come in search of a work card -- their requisite ticket to certain types of employment in the booming Las Vegas economy.

They mingle with the criminal element, required by state law to register with the Police Department when they’ve done their time or are moving to a new community.

Sometimes you can’t tell them apart.

“I’ve been here 10 years,” said Cheryl Hunter, a bureau supervisor. “I’ve heard everything, seen it all.”

Some people try to borrow money from the clerks to pay for work cards, which cost $45. A criminal background check runs another $45, and there’s a charge for fingerprinting.

Others stumble on faulty memories when asked about criminal records.

Occasionally a fugitive from justice who wants a job voluntarily comes in for fingerprinting.

“That big sign outside, apparently they don’t read it,” Hunter said with a chuckle, referring to the big black words that adorn the building: “LVMPD Fingerprint Bureau,” which stands for Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

The bureau is tucked away at the end of an industrial road, about a mile west of the Strip. The building doesn’t look like much, but it’s a portal into the lives of thousands of people who flock to Las Vegas each month in search of work.

On average, the bureau processes 500 people a week, down from about 1,500 when it was issuing work cards last year to many types of casino employees. The work card regulates businesses, trades and professions that require a high degree of supervision, according to police.

As of Jan. 1, 2004, the Police Department stopped issuing gambling work cards; now, most casino industry employees must register with state regulators.

The bureau has a certain cadence, similar to your local department of motor vehicles.

“Now serving 602 at window 10.”

“Now serving 616 at window 15.”

“Now serving 623 at window 11.”

The lines move quickly as the clerks deal with a steady influx of clients and their varied temperaments.

“You have to have patience and thick skin,” said Cinda Loucks, director of fingerprinting at the bureau.

Big events bring a monsoon of applicants, such as private security guards hiring on to work championship boxing matches.

Most people are processed without complication, but an outstanding warrant, extensive criminal history or insufficient immigration documentation means no work card and, perhaps, no job.

Lying about a job referral also is forbidden.

“They have to have an offer for a job,” Loucks said. “We don’t just hand them out.”

Goran Jovanovic, 37, a bartender at the Rio hotel-casino, spoke shortly after getting his non-gambling work card that’s good for five years.

“I have nothing to hide,” he said.

He called his short wait at the bureau an aggravation -- it was his day off -- but he really couldn’t complain about the service. He remembers the bad old days when the busy bureau was located on colorful Fremont Street.

“That was hell,” he recalled.

But many other applicants were no more forthcoming in sharing details about themselves with a reporter than they were with the clerks. Many declined to provide their last names, like Hannah, 25, a dancer from Denver.

Hannah flew into Las Vegas for a weekend of work at a local strip club where she could earn $3,000 to $4,000.

She waited an hour before getting that work card. In her line of work, the card means everything.

“It differentiates between prostitutes and dancers,” she said.

Plenty of Hannahs frequent the bureau, especially before a holiday weekend when the building brims with long-legged women in sexy attire. The strippers tend to stand out among the drab cinderblock walls and bolted-down metal chairs.

Loucks and Hunter said they had learned not to judge anyone on appearances. They don’t see people in the bureau; they see applicants.

“With today’s fashion, sometimes it can get hard,” Hunter said.

“I’ve seen the shortest skirts and the longest skirts,” Loucks added.

Hunter has learned something else in her decade processing people.

If she spots kith or kin walking into the bureau, she keeps quiet.

She doesn’t want to know what they’re doing there.

“You learn really not to ask,” Hunter said.

“You just wave from a distance.”