By Tim Binnall
A longstanding ban on fortune telling has been repealed by a city in Michigan, freeing tarot readers, palmists, and soothsayers of all stripes to practice their trade without fear of running afoul of the law. According to a local media report, the odd ordinance had made it illegal for "any person to engage in fortune telling or pretend to tell fortunes for hire, gain, or reward" within the community of Petoskey. Weirdly enough, the law had actually been on the books for so long that no one in the city's government had any idea when or why it was enacted.
While the ordinance had largely gone unenforced in the community, Sarah Snider of the store Poetess and Stranger set about having the law changed earlier this year when she was approached by a spirit board reader with the idea of doing sessions in the shop and discovered that holding such events would be illegal in Petosky. After she asked the city council to change the rather archaic law, officials were open to the idea and looked into drafting new regulations which would protect consumers while also allowing for fortune tellers to practice their craft.
Looking into how other communities had handled the issue, the city drafted a new ordinance which would have required mugshots from soothsayers before they could be licensed to forecast the future. However, this raised concerns surrounding the possible violation of one's freedom of religion and so officials in Petoskey ultimately opted to simply scrap the old law rather than replace it with any new regulations. Perhaps the city council should have consulted with a psychic before they spent all that time researching and drafting new regulations that they never wound up using.