SALEM - It was a turn of events few could have foreseen. The city's famously feuding fortunetellers made nice last night at City Hall.

A group of witches and clairvoyants, some of whom were so upset with the psychic ordinance adopted last year that they threatened to leave the city, showed up at a City Council subcommittee meeting with a different message and messenger - a lawyer/mediator.

"The reason why we obtained an attorney is so we could stop the chaos," said Laurie Stathopoulos, the owner of Crow Haven Corner, a witch shop.

There was only a brief mention of the unpleasantness of last year, when angry letters were written to the City Council and bloody raccoon parts were left on the steps of two psychic shops. Last night was about getting along and working together to make an ordinance that all could embrace.

The psychics who don't like the current regulation, which they say favors the October psychic fairs, were represented by William Griset Jr., a lawyer from Lynnfield who came to make peace, not war.

"As a litigator, I know it's easy to do battle," he said. "I know as a mediator ... there are ways to resolve almost any dispute."

At the heart of this dispute is the business of psychic readings, which is big business in October. A group of witches, headed by Laurie Cabot, the city's "official witch," submitted a petition last year claiming that the psychics who own shops and pay taxes are losing business to psychic fairs that set up only for the Halloween season.

In that petition, they said allowing so many psychics on the Essex Street pedestrian mall, which is where some of the shops and the fairs are located, "takes too much money away from the merchants who have invested their money and time all year-round." Back in June, they asked the council to amend its ordinance to fix those problems.

However, there was little complaining last night.

Cabot did not attend the meeting. And Griset, who said he had the "good fortune" to represent more than 50 witches and psychics, largely praised the ordinance, calling it a "fine start."

In one of many olive branches, the lawyer even encouraged the City Council to put Christian Day, the operator of the city's biggest psychic fairs, on a working committee with him to make a better ordinance.

Day, who runs the Festival of the Dead, said he likes the ordinance the way it is, but agreed to join the new committee.

"I don't want to see any of these people fail," he said, "... but I don't want to be out of business either."

Councilor-at-large Joan Lovely, the law student who helped write the ordinance, will head a subcommittee of councilors, police, Licensing Board members, tourism officials, witches and psychics to amend the ordinance. No date has been set for the first meeting.

While not claiming to have a crystal ball, Ward 3 Councilor Jean Pelletier said he is not surprised the psychic ordinance is back in the shop for repairs.

"We knew this document was pretty much going to come back and bite us," he said.