Life is about to get tough for scalpers in Milwaukee

There’s nothing quite like the ocean-sized parking lot outside of Miller Park. Beer. Brats. Happy Midwesterners. It’s about as close to heaven a boring, baseball loving guy like me has ever been.

But there’s a dark underbelly lurking:

Team officials say scalpers are using increasingly aggressive tactics, stalking potential buyers, pestering families as they enter the stadium and hopping on tour buses as they arrive at the park. They say they receive complaints nearly every game about the activity, which hurts their attempts to provide a fan-friendly experience.

Lots of fraud too, as scalpers there routinely use tickets to go in and get free giveaways, leave the park and then resell the used (and now worthless) tickets to unsuspecting Wisconsinites. (Query: wasn’t it great when they used to actually tear tickets?).

Scalpers are already supposed to stay in a single designated area, but they always break that rule and usually evade any penalties for it due to loopholes and lax enforcement. All of this has the Wisconsin legislature moving to heel the scalpers.

Good for them. Now if they’ll pass some law that keeps those happy Midwesterners from screwing up perfectly good tailgating by complaining about some Packers’ playoff loss six months ago, the place would be perfect.