They say even the toughest bouncers are scared to climb the haunted staircase at Edmonton's Guilty Martini nightclub. Too spooky.

But at least the spirit who's said to inhabit the place has an educated palate. At one point, investigating psychics heard a supernatural voice complaining about owner Darin Feth's brand of house vodka.

Inspired by numerous weird goings-on in his 81st Avenue club, Feth did some checking and compiled a list of allegedly haunted sites in the provincial capital, including the basement of the Enbridge Building, of all places.

"There are lots of stories of bright lights floating in that basement," notes Feth, who says he confirmed the rumours by checking with security guards at the building, once the site of the old Pantages Theatre.

Dan Riedlhuber, Business Edge
Guilty Martini nightclub owner Darin Feth is in the spirit with a ghoulish pose while paranormal investigators Ben Myckan and Rona Anderson are ready to guide the next Edmonton tourist group.

Maybe the ghosts are the shades of the Marx Brothers, or Buster Keaton, who appeared at the Pantages during long-ago vaudeville tours.

In any case, after a year of marketing (and paranormal) research, Feth now feels ready to spring his newest brainchild on an unsuspecting public: The Ghosts and Graveyards Tour, a spinoff from his well-received mobile pub crawls.

Oddly enough, the local market is already crowded. Another Edmonton company, known as Edmonton Ghost Tours, is already doing walking tours of haunted sites in historic Old Strathcona. So-called un-ghost tours, which debunk the myths, are also available in Alberta's two largest cities.

But Feth believes his rolling spookfest has the competition beat. "We have a special niche in the market," he says. "Nobody does it as professionally as we do."

First of all, his customers travel in style at $30 a pop, riding in London-style double-decker buses, old trolleys or even a horse and buggy. Secondly, they'll be entertained by friendly costumed psychics who double as tour guides. Third, they'll be welcome to refresh themselves in public houses along the route.

It's an interesting excuse for having a laugh and a beverage while you're brushing up on local history, worldly or otherworldly.

Similar tours are planned for Calgary (the southern version is to feature such spectral hot spots as Deane House, the Cat & Fiddle pub and Fort Calgary) and Denver this fall.

Nor is Feth short on ambition. His long-term plans include Ghosts and Graveyards branch operations in Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal. He feels conventioneers and corporate groups represent a particularly attractive target market.

Skeptics might not give Feth's spirited schemes a ghost of a chance. But it would be a mistake to sell him short. He has demonstrated superb sales acumen in the 15 years since he launched Nite Tours International to operate what Feth calls "our signature pub crawls."

An Edmonton native, Feth returned home and started the company at age 23 after he grew weary of life as a Los Angeles-based comedian.

Feth insists that he started up with exactly $1 in his pocket, but he's done well enough to pick up a collection of entrepreneurial honours and awards, while attracting in the neighbourhood of 83,000 thirsty pub crawlers a year at $25 a head.

He's projecting 100,000 customers a year when the pub crawls get rolling in Calgary.

A self-described skeptic, Feth's imagination began to stir when his fiancé refused to return to the Guilty Martini after a disembodied soul there breezed past her one evening.

Eventually, Feth invited Rona Anderson and Ben Myckan, professionally known as the Paranormal Explorers, to run a spirit search. Feth says Anderson was floored when her recordings captured a woman's plea for help and the growling and muttering of a bass voice, as well as the griping of the vodka connoisseur.

Upon investigation, it was learned that the building was once occupied by a carriage manufacturer known as W.H. Scott & Sons. "I think the manager died suddenly," Feth says, making the reasonable assumption that he's one of the phantom regulars.

Other Edmonton tour highlights:

* A building where a long-forgotten town drunk is believed to have drowned after falling into a well: "They say he goes from bar to bar in Old Strathcona, looking for free drinks," adds Feth.

* A city cemetery where the Paranormal Explorers - who also serve as Feth's tour guides - photographed a smiling woman who wasn't there.

* The CKUA building, said to be the home turf of the spirit of a lobotomized janitor.

* The Arlington Apartments, where a lapsed serial killer occasionally sits on the beds of female guests.

So climb aboard and see the town from a new perspective ... while the spirit moves you.

(Tom Keyser can be reached
at keyser@businessedge.ca)