For every k and r, we construct a finite family of axis-parallel rectangles in the plane such that no matter how we color them with k colors, there exists a point covered by precisely r members of the family, all of which have the same color. For r = 2, this answers a question of S.. Smorodinsky [S. Smorodinsky, On the chromatic number of some geometric hypergraphs, SIAM J. Discrete Math. 21 (2007) 676-687]. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.