Politics & Government
Spellbound Tours Faces Suspended License
Complaints filed against ghost tours for leaving customers in the dark.
One of Salem's nightly tours of ghostly sites has run into trouble with the City Council.
, the Council is scheduled to vote on a recommendation to temporarily suspend the license for owner Mollie Stewart, a certified parapsychologist, a licensed ghost hunter with the International Ghost Hunters Society and author of the book Ghosts Among Us.
The Committee on Ordinances, Licenses and Legal Affairs voted unanimously last week to recommend to the full council that the license be suspended. Stewart did not show up as requested by the committee to answer complaints that her tour was taking money from tourists and leaving them in the dark.
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The complaint was filed by Tim Maguire Jr., the managing partner of the Histrionic Academy, which conducts its own ghostly tours of Salem each night.
Maguire declined making direct comment about the competitor, but said: “Our tours have picked up some folks” who were stranded without a guide. “We let them come along” at no charge. One of the stranded wrote that “we saved their night,” he added.
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Maguire said Spellbound has relocated recently. “It may be just a miscommunication,” he said.
Stewart did not respond to requests from the committee to appear last week. Nor did she return calls from Salem Patch to her business.
Committee Chairwoman Joan Lovely said letters were sent to Stewart at two different addresses. She said she did not know why Stewart did not appear before the committee.
In an email, Lovely indicated she wanted to give Stewart the chance to speak before the Council goes into recess for the summer.
According to her website, Stewart has conducted voodoo, cemetery, ghost and vampire tours in New Orleans for more than four years. She then expanded to Salem to provide “unique tours” from its offices at 192 Essex St.
Tickets for the tours cost $13 for adults, $10 for seniors, military and students, $7 for children. The website states that no refunds will be given. The latest tour mentioned on the site occurred on Nov. 30, 2010.
