Your neighbor wants to pay you $100 for your tickets to the sold-out Jazz-Knicks game? Better sell them quick.
The House Wednesday voted 39-35 to make it a Class C misdemeanor to sell a ticket to an entertainment or sporting event for more than its face value.The bill as originally drafted would have made ticket scalping a Class B misdemeanor, but the bill was amended to make it a lesser crime after Rep. Conrad Maxfield, R-Salt Lake, pointed out that prostitution is also a Class B misdemeanor.
"I don't think a person with a little initiative should be placed in the same class as a prostitute," Maxfield said during the heated debate.
Added Assistant Majority Whip Byron Harward, R-Provo, "If the market is there, why can't I set the price I want?"
Some argued that if it weren't for scalpers some people would not be able to get tickets to sold-out events.
But Rep. Larry Lunt, R-Salt Lake, the bill's sponsor, said anyone who thinks ticket scalping is free enterprise doesn't understand free enterprise. "We are not selling our Republican principles down the river," he said.
The bill now goes to the Senate.