VIVA Las Vegas has Hawaii roots

Metro Police are looking to another tourist mecca for a way to increase law enforcement visibility and to extend a friendly hand to Las Vegas visitors.

The roots of Metro's new VIVA patrol, short for Visitor Information and Visitor Assistance, are located in Hawaii.

"The idea for VIVA came from the Honolulu Police Department, which uses citizen patrols to assist tourists on Waikiki Beach," said Larry Baxter, Metro's volunteer services coordinator.

Las Vegas' VIVA team goes into action today on the Strip and at McCarran International Airport.

Armed with cellular phones donated by ALLTEL, teams of two-citizen volunteers will patrol highly populated tourist areas on the lookout for trouble or questions from visitors.

"The VIVA patrols will serve as extra eyes and ears for the police, and will have direct access to police through the cell phones," Baxter said.

Patrols are made up of two volunteers, while a third team member stays at the VIVA command post. VIVA posts are located at the Fashion Show Mall and at the airport, with a third post and patrol scheduled to be placed at the Fremont Street Experience soon, Baxter said.

"Metro wants to have more of a presence in these tourist corridors and we'll get that with these patrols," Baxter said. "There are plenty of officers, but VIVA will bring a higher visibility to a group specifically designed to help and look out for tourists."

Currently there are 16 volunteers participating in VIVA, but Baxter says that many more people have expressed interest in joining.

"We've had a lot of interest, and after volunteers complete background checks we'll get them out there," Baxter said. "Right now the patrols are only on the weekends, but we are planning on expanding it to seven days a week as soon as we have enough volunteers."

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