Should someone be able to sell a reservation for a restaurant besides the restaurant?

I think this is just wrong for someone to act like they have the ability to "auction" or "sell" tables at restaurants without working with the restaurant. Having been a concierge, I know that there are times when you can have a restaurant hold a table or two for you but to sell them...I can't agree with that. I never was a fan of OpenTable or other websites that tried to do the job of a concierge or a person calling the restaurant themselves but after reading this article, I really don't enjoy this process.
~Corey Webbspun


By SARAH KERSHAW
Published: March 12, 2008

IT is hard to imagine Joseph Bastianich, who owns a dozen restaurants with Mario Batali and controls some of the most coveted tables in the country, being flustered by a reservation for two at Babbo for 6:15 on a Friday night.

But Mr. Bastianich was furious: someone was offering that table at TableXchange, a Web site on which diners can buy and sell reservations, hot commodities in a town where getting a table at the most popular restaurants has become an extreme sport.

The price was $25. The table was gone within an hour.

“We’re selling dinner; we don’t sell the opportunity to have dinner,” Mr. Bastianich said. “It goes against the grain of everything we do.”
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Read the entire article in the New York Times.