It may be interesting for you to look at http://jwz.livejournal.com/tag/bike.

(From Alex: Heh, heh. Good one.)

Why would the SCOPD use stickers to mark a bike ? They can be removed.

In Belgium, we engrave the ID-card number of the owner in the frame of the bike, which can't be removed. Easy for the police to look up the person (we have mandatory ID-cards). It's only a bit annoying if you sell the bike, and the police calls you a few years later, when they found the bike somewhere.

(From Alex: Actually, the license sticker probably comes from the State of California. But I agree it's somewhat dumb.

Although I should note that SCO is not the group running the local police department. If they were, they'd be at my door taking away my computer for running Linux on my system... :-) )