It isn’t uncommon for LSU Police officers to catch ticket scalpers at major LSU sport ing events – but police probably won’t charge them for selling over-priced tickets, according to LSU Police Department spokesperson Cory Lalonde.
Under Louisiana Revised Statute 4:1, tickets for an athletic contest, dance, theater, concert, circus or other amusement must have the correct price printed on the ticket and cannot be sold for any amount more than the original price. Violating this law can earn offenders a misdemeanor charge with a $100 to $500 fine and 30 to 90 days in jail. However, Lalonde said this is often difficult for police to prove.
“Any time we arrest anybody on criminal charges, you not only need proof of it, but you also need a complainant,” Lalonde explained. “It’s a hard situation to prove and actually arrest someone on this particular statute because of the way it’s worded – because of the circumstances.”
When LSUPD receives reports of scalpers selling high-priced tickets, individuals can also be flagged for other related offenses, Lalonde said. He cited two individuals LSUPD approached during the NCAA baseball Baton Rouge Regional for reportedly scalping tickets.
“They weren’t arrested for actually scalping,” Lalonde explained. “Both of these individuals had been previously banned from campus.”
As a result, LSUPD arrested them for remaining after being forbidden.
“Anybody who commits a crime on campus and is arrested is typically banned from campus unless they are a student, faculty or staff,” he said.
Lalonde said in certain cases where individuals were involved in previous on-campus incidents, officers can still instruct them to leave campus.
“It’s not always an arrest,” Lalonde said.
Students caught scalping their tickets run the risk of losing tickets for athletic events for the academic year, according to ticket office coordinator Hunter Geisman. He said approximately 20 to 30 students a year are turned in to the ticket office or the dean’s office.
“If they do something during football season, then they won’t be able to attend another event until the following fall,” Geisman explained. “Provided they do everything they’re supposed to.”
But counterfeit tickets have recently proved an even bigger issue than scalping at large events like football games and high profile baseball games.
“The bigger problem we see of the ones that get reported to us is counterfeit tickets,” Lalonde said. “It could be tickets that had been previously used at those events . . . and we’ve had instances where it’s actually counterfeit tickets.”
Lalonde said these tickets can look authentic until compared side by side to a real ticket.
“People need to be very careful of who and where they purchase tickets from,” Lalonde warned. “If you’re not purchasing it directly from LSU, there’s always the chance that it could be a situation where it’s not a legitimate ticket.”
 
____ Contact Austen Krantz at [email protected]