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Maine Residents favor Gambling Expansion

Posted on May 3rd, 2011

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In a public hearing of the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, members of public weigh in two separate citizen initiative petitions to allow expansion of gambling to three cities of the state, which are Lewiston, Biddeford and Calais. The day-long hearing listened to proposals made by Great Falls Recreation and Redevelopment LLC to operate a casino in building No. 5 of the Bates Mill Complex in Lewiston; Biddeford Downs, a partnership between Scarborough Downs and Ocean Propertied Ltd., wants to build a racetrack with slot machines (racinos) and a casino resort hotel in Biddeford; Maine’s Passamaquoddy Tribe in Washington County proposes to run a racino in Calais.

Groups who are pushing for gambling expansion in the state and are backing up the expansion ventures were able to gather the required 157,277 signatures to qualify for November’s statewide ballot. The supporters gathered enough signatures for the petitions to become bills: LD 985, a bill which would allow a slot machine facility in Lewiston and LD 1203, which would allow a racino in Biddeford and a racino run by Maine’s Passamaquoddy Tribe in Washington County. Passamaquoddy Representative Donald Soctomah said that they have been pursuing their dream for almost twenty years and officials keep telling them to wait for another year. During the public hearing, a lot of people were wearing badges with the slogan “1203 –equals jobs”. The citizens of Maine have felt the desperate need of job and seeing gambling expansion in the state as the solution to their pressing needs, people like Susan Higgins expressed her utmost concern for her hometown (Biddeford) to start improving, “We’re hoping that they will pass LD 1203 so that Biddeford Downs can move forward,”

Higgins works at a racetrack in Southern Maine’s Scarborough Downs, where a $125 million racino complex is planned if LD 1203 becomes law. Biddeford residents voted in 2010 for two racinos to be created in their city to answer the scarcity of jobs but only one came to reality: the Hollywood Slots in Bangor. Another gambling expansion supporter Peter Conell says, “It’s time to move forward with the Biddeford Downs complex. The construction side is 800 and there’ll be 500 full-time jobs at the resort and racino. That doesn’t include any ancillary jobs whatsoever–that’s 500 jobs at the Biddeford Downs project.” Conell works with Ocean Properties, the company planning to build the combined slot machine and racetrack resort in Biddeford, “in the process over 1,000 new jobs to the hard-hit region,” he says.

In the other side of the state, in Calais, Washington County, people can’t wait for LD 1203 to become law. The region has an increasing rate of unemployment that they hoped for the gambling expansion to provide jobs to residents in their area. City Manager Diane Barnes told the lawmakers during the hearing that “There’s no question that we need jobs in Washington County. This type of economic development would provide a revenue base for Calais as well as Washington County and also for the state of Maine.” In 2007, Calais residents petitioned to open a tribal casino in the city but Governor John Baldacci vetoed on the proposal. Lewiston residents are equally excited for LD 985 to be a law. It would mean great improvements for the city. Representative of the city Republican lawmaker Bruce Bickford said that

The Maine Constitution gives the lawmakers just two options: adopt the bills as law or put them on the November ballot. While majority of the citizens of the respective cities are impatient for the bills to be passed, a group of opponents insisted that Mainers have a “sovereign right” to vote on what would be a massive expansion of gambling in Maine. Other citizens of Maine do not supporting the move to expand gambling in the state but the majority’s voice speak louder as the need for more jobs and source of living more important. Legislators pushing for gambling expansion believe that it is important to keep up with their neighboring states in the northeast. The states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and New York are all considering casino gaming expansion and Maine would be put into quite the quandary if it were to remain passive.