Fortune-tellers can now legally run their business in Bel
Air.
With a 4 to 1 vote by the Board of Town Commissioners, the
town became the last jurisdiction in Harford County to overturn a wholesale ban
on fortune-telling. The cities of Aberdeen and Havre de Grace and the county
each overturned their bans earlier this year.
Bel Air’s town board tried to repeal the ban once before,
but ended up tabling it after a number of residents came out to protest the
decision.
Commissioner Terry Hanley was the only one to vote against
the bill again.
The board agreed to allow fortune-telling only in a B-3
business zone, as a special exception to the zoning code that must be 1,000
feet from a school or any other fortune-telling establishment.
The board also removed references to the occult from the
definition of fortune-telling, something board chairman and mayor David Carey
had requested.
The commissioners didn’t comment on their decision this
time, although Hanley said later that he is concerned about fortune-telling
businesses proliferating like halfway houses in the town.
He also said again that if a court has a problem with the
town’s ban, he thinks that court should confront the town.
“If somebody wants to challenge us, challenge us,” he
said.
Only one resident, French Poole of Giles Street, spoke out
this time against repealing the ban.
He said his brother had been convinced by fortune-tellers
to lose thousands of dollars, which had destroyed his life.
“If you are going to do this [repeal], you are going to
have to make some strict regulations because when there’s nobody to answer to,
nine times out of 10, [fortune-tellers] are going to do what they want to do,”
Poole said.
But a woman who identified herself as Alice Barrington,
proprietor of Mrs. Barrington’s Intuitive Counseling on Main Street, said she
has long worked in Bel Air, as well as Baltimore County, and defended the
rights of fortune-tellers to ply their trade.
(The board referred to her as Mrs. Johnson, but she
declined to identify herself by that name.)
Barrington said Poole and his brother just had a bad
experience.
“In any profession, there’s good and bad, and
unfortunately, you went to somebody who was not good,” she told Poole.
She said she has never scammed anyone and has not had any
complaints.
“I am a property owner, I am not a scam artist, I am not a
fly-by-night,” she said, requesting for her business to be grandfathered in
through the legislation.