A problem of dishonesty

I couldn't think of another title, to be quite honest.

This morning in the Star Tribune, there is a story about handicapped seating at Target Field being sold, online, to people without disabilities. Click "A problem of dishonesty" for the story.

To my knowledge, new arenas, stadiums and ballparks must have wheelchair accessible seating available in most, if not all price levels. That includes the expensive seats too.

The Tribune reported this morning that ticket brokers buy handicapped accessible seats online and then sell them on other sites, Craigslist, eBay or what have you.

Kevin Smith of the Minnesota Twins was quoted in the article saying that the situation is "terrible" and it "will be fixed."

The Twins do make available to the public, usually on game day, accessible seating tickets that do not sell. I don't have a problem with that. As Smith also said in the article, there is no way to "police" how the tickets are sold, either over the phone or online. "You can't ask them to prove they're disabled" Smith continues. Which is true.

It certainly is a problem when the tickets are being obtained (legitimately or not)before game day, and then resold to people who certainly don't need them, making it difficult, if not impossible for those who do need those seats to get them. There actually was a story written about a disabled woman who had season tickets, and tried to obtain extra tickets for one game in that section for a couple friends. She was told by the Twins ticket office that they were sold out.

People sitting in her row told her, "we got these tickets on the Internet."

I will be interested to see how this situation is handled in the future.