Self-Described Gypsy Who Wants To Open Shop Says Law Is Biased
By Rick Rojas
Nick Nefedro didn’t need to have his palm read or look to Tarot cards to know that his plan to work as a fortuneteller in Bethesda would fail. His fate was already written: Montgomery County says it is illegal to make money from forecasting the future.
But Nefedro, who says he is a Gypsy, is determined to change that. He has enlisted the American Civil Liberties Union in his year-long fight to overturn the law that calls his livelihood fraudulent. He argues that fortunetelling is part of his heritage and that prohibiting him from working as a fortuneteller amounts to discrimination.
“I really want my business here, and I feel like they don’t have the right to discriminate against me,” Nefedro, 40, said.
He said the law is nothing more than persecution of Gypsies, who have long been stigmatized as nomadic thieves and con artists.
“Gypsies do exist, and they are not criminals,” he said, adding that fortunetelling is “something we’ve been doing for thousands of years.”
The term “Gypsy” dates to the 16th century and has been used to describe a European ethnic group, also called the Romany, thought to have originated in India. They were nomadic and often persecuted as troublemaking vagabonds. Some descendants find the term and the stereotypes associated with it offensive.
Like his father, who had been a fortuneteller in the District in the 1980s, Nefedro turned the practice into a business. With family members, he has owned and operated a half-dozen fortunetelling businesses in the Los Angeles area and in Key West, Fla.
But he wanted to move closer to home. Born in the District, he spent much of his youth with friends and family in Bethesda.
Nefedro found a location to rent about two years ago and applied for a business license. He was denied. In May 2008, he filed a lawsuit, which he lost. Now, with the ACLU on board, he wants to continue the fight.