State Senate to Reconsider Scalping Bill : Legislature: Sponsoring Sen. Bill Lockyer believes he can gain enough votes for passage on a second try.

A stringent anti-ticket-scalping bill defeated in the state Senate on Thursday will come up for reconsideration on Tuesday.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), lost by a margin of 16 to 12. Lockyer’s office said he asked for and was granted reconsideration of the bill because he believed he could muster enough votes for passage.

The bill was lobbied against heavily by the California Assn. of Ticket Agencies, which represents more than two dozen Los Angeles ticket brokers. Organization president Brian Harlig contends that the measure could destroy free-market competition in the ticket business.

“This measure could have created a monopolistic situation for the promoters and ticket-service companies,” Harlig said Friday. “The public was rightly served by the Senate rejecting the bill.”

Under current law, selling tickets on or near the grounds of an event without a license is a misdemeanor in California.

The proposal targets brokers (the middlemen who legally buy and resell concert tickets for as much as 20 times face value) by making it a misdemeanor to resell tickets for profit anywhere “without the permission of the owner or operator of the property on which an entertainment or athletic event is to be held.”

The scalping statute was introduced at the urging of the Californians Against Ticket Scalping, an organization of promoters and venue operators founded last fall by San Francisco promoter Bill Graham.

“The show isn’t over till the fat lady sings,” Jerry Pompili, vice president of operations at Bill Graham Presents, said Friday. “The artists are on our side and so are the consumers. We will never give up on this project until the brokers stop messing with the public.”