CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – In a law that few, if any, knew existed, it turns out that fortune tellers and tarot card readers in Clarksville are required to meet strict standards for higher education, physical health and morality. They are also required to report to a city board that doesn’t exist.

City Councilperson Trisha Butler stumbled across the fortune telling ordinance, Chapter 11, while reading the city code and saw immediately that it needed to be repealed. She made that proposal at Thursday’s council meeting.

“I wanted to make sure no one can come through and pull this out and start using it,” Butler told Clarksville Now.

The law, which appears to have been created in 1986, covers an assortment of business practices, including “telling fortunes, or practicing clairvoyancy, spiritualism, palmistry, phrenology, card reading, tattooing or tattoo parlors, or any similar business or occupation.”

Part of the ordinance is already irrelevant: The state of Tennessee has regulated tattoo and body piercing studios since at least 2014.

According to the city code, anyone offering the listed services is required to:

  • Be a citizen of the United States “of good moral character.”
  • Provide five years of residence history with two references for each residence.
  • Provide a clean bill of physical health from a Montgomery County doctor.
  • Be a Tennessee resident for 10 years and a Clarksville resident for two years.
  • Have a college or university degree.

Proof of meeting all of those requirements is to be submitted to a city board that does not exist.

Butler said that City Attorney Lance Baker agreed that several parts of Chapter 11 are unconstitutional. In a 2004 ruling by the U.S. District Court, the City of Dickson was forced to repeal a similar law.

In Clarksville, it appears the law has never been enforced, at least not in anyone’s memory. One of the members of the nonexistent board, in fact, is the “city health officer.” The city doesn’t have a health officer.

“It’s not something we’ve been doing,” Butler said. “Nobody knew (the law) existed.”

Law targeted certain businesses

Butler said it’s important to get rid of the law to protect the many business owners who have been functioning in the city for years.

One of them, Samantha Mowrey, owner of Nine Worlds Healing, said she, too, had never heard of the law.

“That sounds really odd. I’ve never heard of it, and I’ve never had any problem,” Mowrey told Clarksville Now.

After reading the ordinance, Mowrey said she found it strange that “spiritualism” is part of the regulation. According to the code, spiritualism cannot be practiced within 1,000 feet of a church, which Mowrey found offensive. “Is it saying that Christianity is no longer a spiritual practice?”

Mowrey said her primary service is trauma-informed massage therapy, and she added divination six years ago to help some clients get past certain traumas.

That the law lumps fortune-telling, tattooing and spiritualism together shows a basic lack of knowledge, she said.

“It’s very obvious that this was meant to segregate,” Mowrey said.

Bans on spitting, hitting trees with snowballs

While the fortunetelling regulation is the most egregious, Councilperson Butler pointed to several laws still on the books in Clarksville that she wants to see removed, citing as examples these from 1963:

Ban on spitting: “It shall be unlawful for anyone to spit or expectorate upon the street, sidewalk, or public place within the city.”

Ban on throwing snowballs at trees: “It shall be unlawful for any person maliciously to throw any stone, snowball, or any other missile upon or at any vehicle, building, tree, or other public or private property.”

Ban on cussing: “No person in the city shall use any vulgar, profane, or indecent language in any public street or other public place or in any place of business open to public patronage.”

The City Council is expected to vote on repealing the fortune telling ordinance on Thursday, Aug. 4, at 6 p.m. at City Council Chambers, 106 Public Square.