BANGOR – With less than five hours to go before a charity event set Monday night, the early afternoon hours found dozens of employees at Hollywood Slots Hotel and Raceway vacuuming carpets, wiping smudges off glass and metal, touching up paint and setting up serving stations for hors d’oeuvres.

Meanwhile, racino staff and state regulators were making sure the facility’s 1,000 slot machines were on line and in working order.

Outside, construction workers were busy installing the last few exterior lights needed to complete the facade of Hollywood Slots’ permanent home – an Art Deco-inspired complex composed of a gaming and entertainment area at one end, a four-level parking garage at the other and a soon-to-open seven-story hotel out back that overlooks the Penobscot River.

As the hours quickly wound down toward Monday night’s VIP event, General Manager Jon Johnson beamed like an expectant father, giving sneak-peek tours for the media and welcoming a delegation of officials from parent company Penn National Gaming Inc.’s headquarters in Wyomissing, Pa.

For Johnson and other company officials, 15 months of construction and an investment of $132 million all came together Monday night, just in time for today’s official grand opening.

If the November 2005 opening day of its interim facility in the former Miller’s Restaurant building a few blocks up Main Street was any indication, slots fans will begin lining up hours before the 10 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony that will mark the start of a new era for Hollywood Slots.

“That’s my hope – we’ll see,” Johnson said, adding that there’s no way to predict how many will show up to see the complex’s gaming area, which has a capacity of 3,114 at any given time.

Whatever today brings, Johnson is ready, based on the reaction of guests at Monday’s pre-opening bash, a charity play event that aimed to raise funds for the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter and the Good Shepherd Food-Bank.

Though no paparazzi were hanging around out front during Monday night’s event, plenty of others were on hand

to ooh and ah over Hollywood Slots’ new digs.

Current and former city officials and state lawmakers, bankers and contractors, Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau representatives, lobbyists and lawyers and vendors were just some of the 1,200 expected to attend Monday’s event, according to insiders.

Several guests heaped praise on the facility’s interior, which evokes the glamour of 1920s and 1930s Hollywood through such touches as its sea of red carpet and faux marble finishes used for the walls, columns, fins and other architectural features, some of them inspired by historic buildings around downtown Bangor.

The walls are lined with framed movie posters and enlarged black-and-white photographs of such Hollywood royalty as Douglas Fairbanks, Ann Sheridan and Rita Hayworth and over the gaming floor are a pair of billboard-sized posters for actual coming attractions made available through parent company Penn National’s deals with movie studios.

Joseph Brooks, a former legislator from Winterport, said a facility of this caliber would do much more for the region than provide a place to play the slots. Among the spin-offs he expects are conferences and other business gatherings drawn by Hollywood Slots’ total package, which soon will include a full-service hotel, with a business center and fully equipped meeting facilities.

Other Tinsel Town touches included a flock of scantily clad showgirls wearing tall feathered headdresses, Jack Nicholson, Charlie Chaplin and Mae West lookalikes and celebrity “Big Heads” depicting such stars as Liza Minelli and George Burns. Each got double takes from partygoers, though for a variety of reasons.

Guests also raved about the music – performed by Motor Booty Affair, a disco party band with a vast local following – and the food. The champagne flowed as a seemingly endless parade of trays of hors d’oeuvres and canapes was circulated among the crowd.

Guests also could line up at one of the many serving stations set up around the gaming area. Choices included chocolate and pastry specialties, minihamburgers and half-dollar sized crepes, each with a variety of toppings, and seafood served from a pair of nearly coffin-sized ice bars set up near the rotunda, which houses the higher denomination slot machines.

The opening festivities resume today, with a 10 a.m. ribbon cutting and the following festivities:

. Live music throughout the day with Sista Sadie, Rockin’ Ron and the New Society Band, and Midnight Rose.

. Celebrity lookalikes Jack Nicholson, Mae West and more.

. Showgirls throughout the day.

. Picture taking with celebrity “Big Heads” George Burns, Jerry Lewis, Liza Minelli and more.

. The launch of a 10-day grand opening promotion with cash prizes.

dgagnon@bangordailynews.net

990-8189