Billy Strings performs during Bourbon and Beyond Music Festival on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, at Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP)

Professional scalpers, beware. 

The Vermont Legislature looks poised to greatly restrict ticket reselling and deceptive online sellers in the state. 

H.512, which advanced in the Senate on Tuesday, would cap ticket resale prices at 10% above face value, although the regulation would not apply to individuals selling tickets or to resellers that contract directly with venues. 

“When markets show repeated consumer harm, legislatures step in,” Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, who presented the bill on the Senate floor Tuesday, told her colleagues. 

And the harm is real, lawmakers and Vermont venues say. Sometimes, Vermonters inadvertently purchase fake or duplicate tickets from online resellers, leaving venues having to appease disgruntled customers. And even if people buy legitimate tickets, the price tags can be eye-watering. When bluegrass virtuoso Billy Strings played at the Champlain Valley Expo in 2023, concertgoers cumulatively paid resellers more than $65,000 above face value, according to the National Independent Talent Organization, a figure considered an undercount. 

“The market is broken. We know how to regulate it — let’s fix it,” Susan Evans McClure, executive director of the Vermont Arts Council, said in an interview, describing the need for the bill. 

Not everyone has agreed. In VTDigger’s own opinion section, David Balto, an antitrust commentator and former federal antitrust attorney, argued that H.512 would unintentionally encourage Live Nation-Ticketmaster to enter Vermont’s ticket marketplace and jack up prices at the point of sale. The corporation was recently found by a jury to be operating an illegal monopoly.

Evans McClure said lobbying efforts have cropped up nationwide to combat similar legislative pushes to restrict ticket reselling.

“And they came to Vermont,” she said. 

As written, H.512 applies to ticketed events at independent venues with a maximum seating capacity of 3,000, nonprofit venues that host fairs or exhibitions, amateur athletic venues and colleges. 

In addition to the price cap, the bill seeks to ban improper use of intellectual property and so-called deceptive URLs — tactics that can trick ticket purchases into thinking the reseller is affiliated with the venue or artist.  

Enforcement of the bill would be complaint driven, according to Clarkson.

H.512 advanced without any vocal opposition and will need to go back to the House should it fully pass the Senate, as it’s expected to.  

On the floor, some senators wanted to know which events in particular would and wouldn’t be subject to the legislation. 

“Does this stop the scalping of Farmer’s Night tickets?” Sen. Russ Ingalls, R-Essex, asked in jest.

Representatives in the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday voted out a bill, S.209, that would prevent civil arrests — which include some immigration arrests — in specific locations around the state, including healthcare facilities, schools, places of worship, polling places and public libraries. The bill would also protect people traveling to or from school, or other educational institutions. 

The six representatives on the committee who caucus with Democrats voted in favor of the bill while the five representatives on the committee who caucus with Republicans voted against it. 

Representatives on the committee voted out another bill, S.208, which requires a state law enforcement board to create a statewide policy to dictate how local and state law enforcement mask and identify themselves. The committee was split 6-5 on the vote, with the same representatives voting in favor or opposed.

The version of S.208 advanced by the committee is a diluted version of the bill passed by the Senate, which sought to ban all law enforcement agents operating in Vermont — including federal agents — from concealing their identity with masks. 

Want to understand why the committee made a sharp change in course? Read our newsletter from last week. 

— Charlotte Oliver

On Monday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court paused a lower federal court’s pause on Biden-era rules that allowed for the telehealth prescription and mail distribution of mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in common abortion procedures. On Friday night, the lower court had reverted to rules that require mifepristone be prescribed only in person. But the Monday decision means that providers in Vermont and across the country can carry on with virtual distribution of mifepristone as normal, at least until the May 11 deadline Justice Samuel Alito has given for the court to consider it more thoroughly.

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England’s clinical director received word of the Monday pause when a provider was in the middle of administering care, Jessica Barquist, the organization’s Vermont vice president of public affairs, told VTDigger on Monday. As soon as the news came through, the director ran downstairs mid-meeting to update the organization’s protocol.

“These decisions, they’re not just words on paper, right? They have real consequences for real people in their lives and their medical health, right here in Vermont,” Barquist said.