NEWPORT – Some area businesspeople have started a petition drive to force a referendum on allowing video lottery machines at the state’s harness racing tracks.

The machines, they say, not only could save the state’s harness racing industry but also could pump $44 million into communities in local tax relief.

“If we don’t do something,” said Robert Tardy of Palmyra, one of the proposal’s driving forces, “we are going to be seeing our quality racehorses galloping south.”

Gregory Lovely of Newport, William Varney of Bangor, Elton “Posey” Nason of Newport and Tardy, are the principals of NTL Investments LLC, which is the partnership spearheading the video lottery machine referendum.

If the lottery proposal passes in the fall of 2003, NTL plans to back it up with immediate construction of an all-weather, five-eighths-mile oval harness-racing track in the Newport-Bangor-Winterport area.

“This may be the only thing that can save harness racing in Maine,” assessed Tardy this weekend. “It has proven itself in other states.”

In Delaware, for example, three commercial racetracks provide enough revenue from the lottery machines to increase their average race purse to upwards of $5,000, Tardy said.

The average purse in Maine today is $1,200.

“By offering such large purses,” said Tardy, “we would be increasing the number of horses, horse breeding farms. Trainers and others could purchase health insurance – the ramifications are deep.”

Beyond upping the size of race purses, revenues created by the machines could be used to lower taxes, boost agricultural fairs and sustain the state’s struggling racing industry.

Tardy said the local tax relief generated by the machines could be as much as $44 million annually, shared among Maine’s towns, based on the same rate by which they receive state revenue sharing.

In New Hampshire, a similar proposal is “very close” to being passed, said Tardy, and it would provide $30 million annually in aid to education. “If Massachusetts and New Hampshire pass measures and we don’t, our racing industry is gone,” said Tardy.

NTL is spending $500,000 on the campaign to allow video lottery terminals, a move voted down by Mainers in a 2000 referendum, losing by a vote of 387,872 to 253,920 in favor.

Tardy said that referendum was proposed by the late Scarborough Downs owner Joseph Ricci, and was perceived by many voting against it as an exclusive gambling agreement.

But with 40 percent of the voters in favor of video lottery machines, Tardy said the group feels it can be successful because this vote would authorize machines at all Maine racetracks.

NTL’s proposal also is markedly different, said Tardy, because it already has the support of both the Maine Harness Horsemen’s Association and the Maine Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association.

Last week it also garnered the unanimous support of the Maine Agriculture Fair Association.

Tardy said that revenues from the video lottery machines would be spread in the following way:

. 40 percent of gross revenue to local tax relief.

. 6 percent to Maine Harness Racing Commission purses.

. 3 percent to agricultural fairs.

. 2 percent to state police for administration.

. 11/2 percent to sire-stakes’ fund.

. The balance to licensee and management companies for expenses.

NTL is gathering signatures – 42,000 are required – on a petition that would put the issue on the November 2003 ballot. If the issue passes, the central Maine racetrack would be up and running by 2004, said Tardy.

“We have to be 100 miles from Scarborough,” said Tardy, which would put the location of a racetrack anywhere from Palmyra to Winterport. Imagining a cruise ship that could come up the Penobscot River to Winterport, Tardy said such a racing facility in central Maine would be a huge boost to the tourism industry.

The track would cost between $6 million and $7 million to construct and NTL already has an agreement in hand with Bangor Historical Track, Inc., which holds the commercial license to hold races at Bangor Raceway.

The agreement would allow live racing at the Newport-area track without affecting Bangor racing.