Rams Head Tavern has procedures for hustling people out the door who try to linger past the 2 a.m. closing time. It's the ones who seem to want to hang around for centuries that make some on the staff come unglued.

The popular tavern, eatery and music venue at 33 West St. traces its roots back to 1703, when a young brewer named Benjamin Fordham decided to stake his fortune on slaking the thirst of the local colonists. The spot where the building stands today was first owned by St. Anne's Parish, then subleased to a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Chase, and later operated as a tavern and "house of entertainment" before the 18th century came to a close.

Given its spirited history, the notion that the tavern has picked up a few ghostly spirits along the way draws people looking for more than a cold beer and pub fare. Last Friday night, a dozen people affiliated with the Maryland Ghost and Spirit Association gathered in the "tea room" on the main floor for a dinner and ghost tour.

Server Beca Vietri whetted the group's appetite not only for the dinner specials, but for the ghost hunting to follow.

"She's terrifying. I see her all the time. She freaks me out. I've got plenty of stories," said the waitress before she hurried off to collect drink orders.

The "she" Vietri was referring to is Amy, a young woman from the tavern's early days who met her demise while "entertaining" a gentleman caller, so the story goes. (Annapolis Ghost Tours owner Mike Carter said his guides often skip over Amy's line of work when children are on tour.)

"If you're near a hot guy, you're going to feel a cold chill," said hostess Kim Sheehan in explaining how to detect Amy's presence.

Rams Head staff members recalled that during construction in the 1990s to expand operations, workers found Amy's name supposedly scratched into a wall in the cellar. They'll also point out where the bedpost from the bed in which she died protrudes through the ceiling of the "down bar" in the building's lower level.

Beverly Litsinger, president of the Maryland Ghost and Spirit Association, claims to have taken a photo on an earlier visit of Amy's ghostly figure and passed the shadowy image around the table for attendees to see. After dinner, she took a few more pictures before her camera batteries died, something she blamed on the ghostly presences. "They borrow (energy) from wherever they can," she said.

Table busser Eddie Hartman is not too concerned about Amy, or the ghostly old woman who some claim to have seen in the tea room. It's the presence he sometimes feels when's he's down in the liquor cage late at night that has him spooked.

"I locked it up at 2 o'clock one night. I'll let you hear what it sounded like," he said, as he grabbed the front of the chain-link enclosure in the tavern's cellar and shook it back and forth. "The whole cage was shaking and I freaked out," he said. "Crazy stuff happens."

Following the meal and tour, attendees fanned out throughout the building with ghost-busting equipment: electromagnetic field detectors, temperature gauges, motion detectors and a pair of divining rods like those used to detect water underground.

"Something's definitely in this room. They're spinning like crazy," said Litsinger as she held the two metal rods in front of her and their ends twirled in the air.

In her day job, the Randallstown resident works as a consultant for nonprofit groups. She has 5,000 to 6,000 people from across the country on her ghost society contacts list and leads ghost tours throughout the state. Some of her favorite haunts for ghost investigations are Westminster Hall in Baltimore, Gabriel's Inn in Ijamsville, the covered bridges of Thurmont, and Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. She said television shows like "Ghost Hunters" have heightened interest in her tours.

At Rams Head, company officials have a collection of stories of silverware mysteriously turned upside down, liquor bottles popping off shelves and drinks spilling over for no apparent reason (especially at table 32). Whether there's something otherworldly going on is a matter for debate, but if ghost stories can help scare up extra business in a down economy, manager Scott Haney is willing to believe.

"I grew up when Caspar was on TV," he said. "Ghosts don't have to be scary. If they help sell beer, even better."

That's one explanation Pat Linse, co-founder of the California-based Skeptics Society, can get behind. "If I were an entrepreneur, I would promote a ghost. It's fabulous for business," she said.

In general, there's a rational explanation for the odd occurrences attributed to ghosts, Linse said - but that shouldn't spoil the fun. "Ghosts in taverns are generally innocuous and fun things. My advice to people is just to keep it fun and silly."

Phantoms and Monsters