Santa Monica to Ease Limits on Psychics

Fortunetellers in Santa Monica, banished for decades to the Santa Monica Pier, can soon set up shop along a portion of Ocean Front Walk, the tourist-heavy beachside path that historically has been off-limits to soothsayers.

This week, the City Council unanimously passed an interim ordinance to allow fortunetellers to operate there from beachside storefronts, not from sidewalk tables.

But local merchants say the well-heeled tourists in Santa Monica have no need for fortunetellers because they already have acquired some wealth. Rival Venice clairvoyants, who have been beachside for years, say the “energy” in Santa Monica just isn’t right for fortunetelling.

“Venice is Venice, and I love it,” said T. J. Sorady, manager of Big Dean’s Cafe on Ocean Front Walk in Santa Monica, who is opposed to the rule change. “But you don’t need two Venices.”

In Venice, at a crystal-strewn table set up near the ocean, Tarot card reader Alva Curry predicted no rush to Santa Monica.

“If I told my clients I was going to relocate my table to Santa Monica, they wouldn’t come,” Curry said. “It’s too commercial.”

The new law, set to take effect in early September, was prompted by the legal threats of fortuneteller Doreen Ruby Adams, who accused Santa Monica of violating her 1st Amendment rights by refusing to grant her a business license for a Wilshire Boulevard storefront.

Adams didn’t return calls for comment.

At the advice of City Atty. Marsha Moutrie, the City Council changed its law to comply with a 1985 state Supreme Court ruling that prohibits California cities from banning fortunetelling but allows some neighborhood limits.

Santa Monica city planners, meanwhile, envision expanding the rules to allow psychic storefronts in other tourist districts, such as Main Street, downtown and the Third Street Promenade.

City staffers say there had been no previous challenge to the half-century ban.

City Councilman Kevin McKeown said he is not concerned that Santa Monica will become another psychic center, like Venice. “The city is not about to be overrun with fortunetellers,” he said.

So far, McKeown’s prediction has proved true. Adams is the only person who has applied for a fortuneteller’s license in the city, officials said.

The new law opens to fortunetellers a quarter-mile stretch from the Santa Monica Pier to Pico Boulevard. A final version of the ordinance, which may expand fortunetelling to other areas, is expected by early September.

“My college major was physics, not psychics, but with this compromise, I think we’ve struck a happy medium,” McKeown said.

Many psychics consider themselves personal consultants and have licensed themselves as such.

One Santa Monica clairvoyant, a woman known only as “Guru,” said she worries that the new law will attract an element of fraud to the business of clairvoyance.

“My concern is that they put quality psychics out there,” Guru said by telephone. “It’s very important that they know what they’re doing.”