The Salem News reports that the Salem city council is considering requiring psychics who want to practice their trade to pass some sort of exam to show they really know what they are doing before they are allowed to ply their trade. Salem isn't the first town to consider this step. Back in 2002 San Francisco considered the question, in order to protect its residents. It did enact an ordinance licensing fortune tellers; here's the result.
(a) Fortunetelling shall mean the telling of fortunes, forecasting of futures, or reading the past, by means of any occult, psychic power, faculty, force, clairvoyance, cartomancy, psychometry, phrenology, spirits, tea leaves, tarot cards, scrying, coins, sticks, dice, sand, coffee grounds, crystal gazing or other such reading, or through mediumship, seership, prophecy, augury, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, mindreading, telepathy or other craft, art, science, talisman, charm, potion, magnetism, magnetized article or substance, or by any such similar thing or act. It shall also include effecting spells, charms, or incantations, or placing, or removing curses or advising the taking or administering of what are commonly called love powders or potions in order, for example, to get or recover property, stop bad luck, give good luck, put bad luck on a person or animal, stop or injure the business or health of a person or shorten a person's life, obtain success in business, enterprise, speculation and games of chance, win the affection of a person, make one person marry or divorce another, induce a person to make or alter a will, tell where money or other property is hidden, make a person to dispose of property in favor of another, or other such similar activity.
(b) Fortunetelling shall also include pretending to perform these actions.
(c) Persons as used in Sections 1300 to 1321 shall mean an individual. Corporations and other legal entities shall not be entitled to a fortunetelling permit.
(Added by Ord. 196-03, File No. 021948, App. 8/1/2003)
SEC. 1303. EXCEPTION.
Sections 1300 through 1321 shall not apply:
(a) To persons solely by reason that the person is engaged in the business of entertaining the public by demonstrations of mindreading, mental telepathy, thought conveyance, magic, giving of horoscopic readings or other fortunetelling at public places and in the presence of and within the hearing of other persons, and where any questions answered as part of such entertainment may be heard by all persons present at such public place.
(b) To persons conducting or participating in any religious ceremony as a minister, missionary, medium, healer, or clairvoyant, hereinafter collectively referred to as minister, from any bona fide church or religious association that conducts regular services and has a creed or set of religious principles that is recognized by all groups of like faith, provided that:
(1) The benefit, gain or advantage shall be regularly accounted for and paid solely to or for the benefit of the bona fide church or religious association except that the bona fide church or religious association may pay to its ministers a salary or compensation based upon a percentage only, pursuant to an agreement between the church and the ministers that is embodied in a resolution and transcribed in the minutes of such church or religious association.
(Added by Ord. 196-03, File No. 021948, App. 8/1/2003)
San Francisco, like some other California cities, started licensing fortune tellers after a case called Spiritual Psychic Science Church v. City of Azusa (39 Cal. 3d 501(1985)), in which the California Supreme Court invalidated a city ordinance that read, "No person shall practice or profess to practice or engage in the business or art of astrology, augury, card or tea reading, cartomancy, clairvoyance, crystalgazing, divination, fortune telling, hypnotism, magic, mediumship, necromancy, palmistry, phrenology, prophecy, or spiritual reading, or any similar business or art, who either solicits or receives a gift or fee or other consideration for such practice, or where admission is charged for such practice." The Court ruled, "...{W]e conclude the ordinance is unconstitutional because it unduly burdens rights guaranteed by article I, section 2, of the California Constitution." The Santa Monica city attorney's reaction was to recommend repeal of an existing ordinance and replace it with one that required licensing as well. A number of other California jurisdictions license fortune tellers, including Stockton and Riverside.
Thus, if a state permits fortune telling, a municipality can license the practice. If a state permit fortune telling, may a municipality forbid the practice? I'll discuss that issue in a future post.
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