Sarnia mayor tells province Springsteen fans 'Held Up Without a Gun' by ticket brokers

The overpriced resale of tickets to Bruce Springsteen's only Canadian concert next year has the mayor of Sarnia, Ont., feeling like he's being "Held Up Without a Gun."

In a heartfelt message to the Ontario government Monday, the cheeky and creative Mayor Mike Bradley pounded out a letter heavily layered with Springsteen lyrics and song titles, calling on legislators to stop online ticket brokers from jacking up prices to special events.  

"I'm On Fire along with many others who have been Blinded by the Light of the greed by on-line ticket sellers stuck in the Badlands of broken dreams, heartbreak and despair," Bradley wrote.

In the letter sent to David Orazietti, the province's government and consumer services minister, the mayor says Ontario should follow the lead of U.S. states that have cracked down on secondary ticket sales.

Using song titles like We Take Care of Our Own, Bradley urges the minister to update legislation so that residents, particularly Springsteen fans, have a Reason To Believe in government again.

Bradley used the tongue-in-cheek style in his letter to bring attention to what he calls a very serious issue.

'Almost like organized crime'

"I would hope that they take a serious look at bringing some control over to the online ticket brokers," he told CBC News. "Yes, they should be able to make a profit. Yes, they're providing a service, but what's been happening in this particular situation is way beyond what is right. It's almost like organized crime the way these groups are operating right now."

The mayor already has a ticket to Springsteen's Feb. 2 show at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, but he says fans are being forced to pay outrageous prices to "unscrupulous" online brokers.

He's particularly upset that those brokers posted heavily inflated ticket prices on their website a week before the official release date of Dec. 11.

Bradley wants Ontario to enact several changes to laws governing ticket sales. He'd like to see the province follow the State of New York's lead, which made several changes a year ago.

Some include:

• Banning an operator's agent from selling or conveying tickets to any secondary ticket reseller owned or controlled by the operator's agent.
• Banning the use of "automated ticket purchasing software."
• Making "ticket speculation" a crime.

Ontario updated its laws in 2010 with the Ticket Speculation Act, which was designed to stop Ticketmaster and others from selling and then reselling tickets to the same event. At the time, though, critics said the law wouldn't stop people from buying blocks of tickets online and putting them on resale sites.

The act was updated in July in a bid to crack down on ticket fraud. The law now forces ticket sellers to authenticate tickets being resold, but still allows for prices to go above face value.

You can read Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley's entire letter below: