Free rent for ticket brokers has become an expensive gift.

Because of a busier-than-anticipated ticket exchange and a throng of additional scalpers on the sidewalk outside, Salt Lake City officials have charged ticket brokers with offices inside the Wells Fargo building on the corner of 200 South and Main Street a one-time $1,000 security fee. Brokers have not had to pay rent in the building, although they did have to pay for phone lines and $750 for a business license, plus $60 for each additional employee.

Failure to pay the fee resulted in some brokers being locked out of their offices Monday, sending them scrambling for a way to pay the city. And not all of the brokers agreed to the fee; Robstickets.com, a Connecticut-based broker, chose to instead box up their approximately $100,000 in remaining tickets and look for another way to sell them.

"It's extortion . . . they're trying to strong-arm us," said Robstickets.com employee John (he did not want his last name printed). "But we're not running away with our tail between our legs."

Brokers were first asked to pay the fee by letter on Feb. 9, after the city realized that the crowds were too large for the single security officer that the city had already hired for the ticket exchange, John Sittner, the city's director of Olympic planning, said. Another letter was delivered Sunday, with the warning that a failure to pay would result in brokers being locked out of their offices.

Without charging the fee, the city would either have had to close the popular exchange or foot the extra security costs itself, Sittner said.

"We were handling this in a very loose way, trying to be accommodating," he said. "The city has every right to close it down . . . we gave [the brokers] a choice. It wouldn't have been fair to make the taxpayers cover those costs."

Even after the $1,000 fee, Sittner said the brokers are still getting a great deal from the city because none of them had to pay any rent for their spaces, which attract Olympic visitors either desperate to see a specific event or hoping to find a bargain ticket. Additionally, the extra security officers will help the brokers by keeping the unlicensed scalpers away from the exchange.

Few brokers have any desire for the extra security, however, which they say is primarily being used to clamp down on the unlicensed scalpers the city wants to get off the sidewalks.

"They needed it because they had to clean up the front," said a Toronto-based broker who did not want to be identified. "They created a problem, and now they want us to pay for it."

The additional security will be complemented by two police officers on the street Monday night, where Mayor Rocky Anderson has requested that they help enforce the city's scalping laws. Any person selling more than six tickets without a license can be cited, and many of the scalpers outside the building never bought a license.

"These are people who didn't get business licenses," Anderson said. "We want to take a reasonable approach to this. They're standing right out in front of legitimate businesses, clearly in violation of the law."

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The two officers are part of the Olympic division, which patrols downtown Salt Lake City during the Games. The officers will be available to help enforce the law, but won't be issuing citations, Salt Lake Police Sgt. Fred Louis said.

"We're not writing tickets, we're just assisting and standing by to keep the peace," Louis said. "We're there to make sure the agent is able to complete his duty. Before some of these guys were just walking off. They didn't take the licensing agents seriously."

Contributing: Derek Jensen, Diane Urbani

E-MAIL: jloftin@desnews.com

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