Slots debate nearing payoff Baldacci bill applauded, denounced

AUGUSTA – The Baldacci administration’s attempts to impose strict controls on slot machines at the state’s harness racing tracks earned both compliments and condemnation at a packed public hearing Wednesday.

“Big time gambling is coming to Maine and it’s coming on our watch,” warned Rep. David Lemoine, an Old Orchard Beach Democrat who presented the bill on behalf of the governor, a staunch racino opponent. “This is a necessary step in preparing for this new reality.”

The bill, LD 1820, would establish a gambling regulatory board designed to rein in the introduction of slots to Maine. Voters at a November referendum approved the new form of gambling for the state’s two harness racing tracks.

The mere creation of the gambling board didn’t worry many at the hearing in the Legislature’s Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee chambers, which required three additional rooms to handle overflow crowds.

Instead, some took issue with the governor crafting a bill that proposes major changes to legislation backed by a substantial majority of voters.

“It suggests that the people of Maine didn’t know what they voted for,” said an obviously frustrated David Nealley, executive vice president with Capital Seven LLC, the company that proposes to bring slots to the Bangor Raceway.

“That’s asinine,” continued Nealley, who also serves on the Bangor City Council.

Others took issue with parts of the governor’s bill that imposed hefty licensing fees on slots operators and required them, through “impact fees,” to subsidize losses incurred by other gambling outlets including the Maine State Lottery and the state’s off-track betting parlors.

“I’m concerned this may be designed to kill potential for a racino in Bangor that has tremendous economic potential,” said Rep. Jeff Kaelin, R-Winterport. “This was designed to kill this debate in the cradle.”

That prospect worried committee member Rep. Pat Blanchette, a Bangor Democrat who said the general intent of voters – both statewide and in Bangor – had to be honored.

“If there is something in here I think is going to sabotage what’s going to happen in Bangor, it’s going to be deleted,” she said.

The committee will hold a work session on the bill at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 14.

Thus far, Bangor Raceway is the only racetrack eligible for slot machines, with Scarborough Downs failing to win the needed local approval by the Dec. 31, 2003, deadline imposed by the referendum legislation.

Several of the Baldacci bill’s opponents, including Scarborough Downs owner Sharon Terry, asked the committee to extend the deadline and expand the 5-mile radius within which the track could relocate and operate slot machines.

Committee members, in earlier interviews, were divided about the extensions, opposed by the Baldacci administration but supported by many in the racing industry loyal to the state’s largest track.

Dennis Bailey, spokesman for the political action committee Casinos No! which engineered the defeat of the southern Maine racino proposals, said his group opposed any extensions. Furthermore, while he supported the governor’s bill, he urged the committee to send any changes back to voters.

“This is like finding new evidence to convict someone after a jury has returned an acquittal,” said Bailey, who came under pointed questioning from some on the committee about his potential financial interest in a new referendum campaign. “We need a new trial.”

Lawmakers, however, have expressed resistance to sending any revised legislation out to a popular vote. Many harness racing industry officials also cringed at the idea, and instead urged the committee to reject many of the radical changes to the referendum legislation.

“This is not tweaking Question 2,” horse owner and veterinarian Denise McNitt of Cumberland said of the governor’s 39-page bill that would repeal the 15-page bill approved by voters. “It’s killing it.”

Kurt Adams, the governor’s chief counsel, however, said inaction would make Maine one of the least-regulated states in terms of gambling.

“Doing nothing is not an option,” said Adams.

The committee will take public comment through e-mail until Monday. People can submit comments to racino.comments@legislature.maine.gov.