San Francisco Update - San

San Francisco Update - San Francisco has voted to regulate psychics and ban some of the tricks of their trade.

The tricks, banned under the new law, include the knot in the thread (the fortune-teller makes a knot disappear) and the blood in the glass (the fortune- teller asks a client to spit into a glass of water, then secretly adds black dye to show the client is cursed).

Also banned would be the hair in the grapefruit (the client rubs a grapefruit on his body and covers it with money, and the fortune-teller then plants a hair inside the grapefruit to prove the money is cursed, and keeps the money) and the buried money in the graveyard (the fortune-teller promises to bury a client's "cursed" money in a graveyard, but keeps it instead).

Peskin introduced a 36-year-old San Francisco woman who lost $17,000 last year to a Richmond District fortune-teller.

The fortune-teller charged the victim hundreds of dollars per visit and tricked her into buying two $2,000 gift certificates at Union Square stores. The fortune-teller said she would bless the gift certificates and return them to her lovelorn client, so that she could give the certificates to her estranged husband and win him back. Instead, the fortune-teller used the certificates herself.

"I don't know why I believed her," recalled the victim, who did not want to be identified. "It was so stupid. I lost my sanity, I guess."

She was half right.

The proposed law, which comes before the Board of Supervisors next month, covers fortune-telling by not only crystal balls, tarot cards and astrology charts, but by "sticks, dice, tea leaves, coins, sand and coffee grounds" as well. Fortune-tellers would be required to post rate cards and a phone number for complaints. Police say requiring permits would make it easier to keep tabs on swindlers.

Next to be banned: The old "pull the finger" trick.

Posted by Mitch at December 21, 2002 09:24 AM