September 5, 2008 Fortunes change for Vermont psychics Play video

(Anya Huneke, NECN: St. Johnsbury, VT) - Since the 1960s, fortune tellers have been less than welcome in the northern Vermont town of St. Johnsbury. However a ban on clairvoyant activities has now been lifted.

Sisters Sali Tetreault and Sandra Barrett say they knew at a young age that they had psychic abilities.

And now as adults .. They both practice divination. But until recently .. They couldn't do so in their homes - or their hometown.

Sandra "having this as a home base - but doing fairs everywhere else - made it difficult."

For decades, St. Johnsbury, Vermont had an ordinance on the books outlawing fortune-telling...

“It should be unlawful to carry on clairvoyance, fortune-telling, palmism..." An ordinance few - including town manager Mike Welch - paid any mind.

Mike Welch\town mgr "to be honest, none of us really knew much about it... I don't think it was really being enforced."

But to jean O’Neil - owner of the integrative therapy institute - it was a problem waiting to happen.

Jean "after i heard about the law i was thinking- what if someone doesn't like my business?"

O’Neil herself is not a psychic .. But she does practice feng shui, which she says was also illegal...

"we colored these colors because of the direction we're facing..."

So on behalf of herself - and the soothsayers of St. Johnsbury - she went to town hall... And lobbied to have the ordinance repealed.

Jean

And to her surprise .. It was an easy sell.

Mike "the town attorney said he saw no reason to have the ordinance there."

“The town manager guesses fear had something to do with the ordinance being passed in the first place. But fear doesn't seem to be much of an issue anymore... The town has gotten very little negative feedback to the ordinance being repealed."

Mike "i did receive one call from a person who felt this would open the floodgates..."

Welch says little has changed since the ban was lifted in July... O’Neil, though, says she knows many who now feel a greater sense of spiritual freedom.

Jean "other people have come forward and said they felt like they were in hiding in St. Johnsbury."

For Tetreault and Barrett .. This was long overdue...

Sali "Vermont is really known as being progressive... But this was an old-fashioned, archaic law that didn't make any sense." Now, they say, they like what they see in the future.