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Maine Casino Opponents Demand Recount

Posted on November 12th, 2010

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The state of gambling affairs in Maine was given a quick boost when the casino referendum was approved by the state’s voters. The state’s voters had been answering a question about gambling almost every other year for a decade. So far, they have only consented to one, which resulted in the opening of the Hollywood Slots Casino in Bangor. This recent referendum has given the green light to a casino in Oxford County. However, this casino will have table games aside from the slot machines the first Maine casino was allowed to have. This provision has incurred the ire of tribal casinos and Penn Gaming, owner of the Bangor facility, who both deem that the new casino will kill their businesses. But with the affirmative votes winning in the elections, the opposition is demanding a recount.

The opponents of the casino proposal would like to have a recount in last week’s election. With the state’s voters approving the first casino of Maine to house both table games and slot machines, the opposing camp is claiming that there were mistakes in the counting of votes. Petitions containing more than 150 signatures were given to the office of the secretary of state office in Augusta last Tuesday. The submission was ahead of the set deadline at 5 in the afternoon of that day. The minimum required under the laws of Maine for a recount to be done is 100 signatures, which must be received by 5 p.m. one week after the election. With that fulfilled, the secretary’s office will now need to certify the signatures. Aside from the casino question recount, the office has also received requests for recounts in the Senate, State House, county commissioner and district attorney’s races. Those races have deadlines for recount, but the signature verification for the casino recount does not have a deadline.

According to the counting made after the elections, voters approved a ballot question asking if they approve of a casino in the town of Oxford in western Maine by fewer than 5,300 votes. The margin is less than 1 percentage point out of the more than 556,000 votes casted, as presented by unofficial tallies. Scott Vlaun, a member of the Oxford Hills No on One, an anti-casino group, said, “The margin was so close and so many people worked so hard for so long we felt obligated to all the supporters to make sure we did in fact lose it at the polls. It seems at that range there’s plenty of room for error.” For their part, one of the casino investors with Black Bear Entertainment LLC, Rob Lally, is confident that the count was correct and decision will be upheld. He said, “I think with the numbers we’ve won by, it’ll be very unlikely this will be overturned or changed.

Lally and the rest of Black Bear Entertainment already want to forward its plans of building a casino resort worth $165 million. The casino is planned to be constructed in phases, and will include a gambling hall, a hotel with 200 rooms, restaurants, a spa and space for a convention center. The casino complex will be located along Route 26, although the final lot where the casino will be located has not yet been made known to the public. As of the moment, Hollywood Slots in Bangor hosts 1,000 slot machines and is explicitly not allowed by law to have table games like blackjack and craps in the facility.

Supporters of the casino have been quick to point out that the plans will make more jobs and revenue to the state and its residents, which in turn will jumpstart the economy by providing additional revenue and taxes every year. Critics maintain that the plan will funnel money out of the local economy and into the pockets of the select investors. They also cited increased crime rates, gambling addiction and lesser business for existing casinos. The last reason was not stated in such manner, of course.

The last time a recount was done on a ballot measure in Maine was in 1995. During that time, voters approved seat belts to be mandatory by less than 1 percentage point. The recount was stopped when the opposition said that it was already satisfied with only less than 12 percent of votes recounted.