The Oklahoma City Council yesterday decided to “let free enterprise, not a city ordinance, govern the price of secondhand event tickets,” and voted unanimously to “approve the city's new ticket scalping ordinance on the third time it was set for a vote since last month,” according to Michael Kimball of the OKLAHOMAN. The council “twice previously sent the ordinance back to city staff for modifications after expressing displeasure with its initial wording.” The new ordinance “scraps altogether a cap on the price a secondhand seller can charge for a ticket.” The city's old law “put the cap at 50 cents above face value.” The council also approved “a scalper-free buffer zone around the downtown Chesapeake Energy Arena.” The previous ordinance had “no buffer zone, and the council resisted creating a large buffer zone around all event venues as proposed in the first version of the new ordinance.” Council members hope the buffer zone “will combat scalpers' attempts to cherry-pick fans right outside the door of the arena's box office for events when tickets are still available inside.” The buffer zone “extends from the arena to the streets surrounding it, including the hotel and parking garage next door and the space between the arena and the south Cox Convention Center entrance.” The opposite sides of those streets and other corners of the intersections “are fair game” (OKLAHOMAN, 4/18).
