Grabby grabby!

Some of the most fascinating moments before the Las Vegas City Council never get reported because they're about individual work cards — permission slips, essentially, to work in certain industries here, like serving alcohol or dancing naked for tips.The idea is to keep out people with shady backgrounds, and it makes for some fine theater when an applicant tries to convince the council to grant a second chance.

There's a silly part, too. Council members go to great, euphemistic lengths not to mention what the applicant's crime actually was, because the reports they receive are "confidential." Never mind that the person's name is printed on a public agenda and it's as easy as pie to look up a public court record.

Anyway, the other day a woman who needed a card to cashier at a grocery store came up, and pretty much blurted out she'd had a drug problem but was clean now. Then came a guy who didn't reveal his crimes except that he'd done something stupid before he had the guidance of a good woman in his life and he needed to keep his restaurant job. (I guessed right: Theft.)

These cases are usually touching because the employer knows about the person's background and is backing the employee anyway. Second chances, not being defined by the past, all that — and, usually, the council says yes, although the person's on notice not to screw it up.

But some don't get that second chance.

The last guy on the agenda wanted to keep working at a 7-11, but he had a felony on his record. He admitted he was at fault for his crime, and talked about the alcohol dependency program he completed and the fact that his relationship with God got him through his prison term. The drinking had nothing to do with his crime, though, he said, which was big of him, because the reason he did time involved having sex with a pre-teen. (He's in his 40s.) It took me about 50 seconds in the records room to look that up, and I wish I hadn't.

Kids go into 7-11s, and cashiers there are frequently on their own. So the council turned him down.

A large group of co-workers and his manager were there to support him, and they all walked out together, him bitching the whole time. "Do I pay for this the rest of my life?" he was muttering. As they walked out the door, he put his hand on a woman's shoulder, then let his hand slide down her back to her waist, and then the top of her butt.

And I'm thinking:

1. A child molester has a girlfriend and I don't?

and,

2. You couldn't wait until you're outside the chamber before grabbing your girlfriend's ass?