BANGOR — It’s a quiet Thursday morning on the floor of the Hollywood Slots Hotel and Casino, but no one’s expecting it to stay that way for long.

It’s the Friday before a busy holiday weekend — Columbus Day weekend in the U.S. and the Canadian Thanksgiving up north — and the casino and neighboring merchants are expecting a bonanza from both south and north.

“They bring people here, people that just wouldn’t come otherwise,” John Marko, manager of Bangor’s Fireside Inn, said of Hollywood Slots. “If you stop and think about it, it’s the one bona fide draw this town has. Bangor is a beautiful area, with plenty of shopping. But part of the draw is just that casino.”

Marko’s hotel is directly across Dutton Street from the casino. Even though Hollywood Slots has its own 152-room hotel, Marko said there’s plenty of new business to go around.

“Bangor fluctuates from having just about the right number of hotel rooms for this market, and then too many,” he said. “There is a lot to sell at night, but they do. They bring people to town each night to sell those rooms.”

It’s the kind of impact backers of a Lewiston casino want to see in the Twin Cities, and they’re betting on a casino in the iconic Bates Mill No. 5.

Backers imagine replacing the broken windows of the neglected, saw-tooth-roofed Main Street mill with clean brick and neon as shiny and bright as the lights adorning Hollywood Slots.

“We have this building that’s been vacant for more than 20 years,” said Ron Chicoine, one of the Lewiston casino’s main financial backers. “It’s an eyesore, and it’s time to do something about it. Our community leaders have tried their best to bring economic development, and now they think this is a good idea.”

Both projects are sold as riverfront developments that will bring an economic boon to a town suffering from declining industries — textiles in Lewiston and lumber in Bangor.

The Bangor development, which opened in 2008, covers about 41/2 acres, with room for the casino and more than 1,000 slot machines, a seven-story hotel and a 1,500-space parking garage.

Bates Mill No. 5, the building Lewiston voters approved for the Great Falls Recreation and Redevelopment LLC-proposed casino, covers just over 5 acres.

An enormous amount of money flows through the Bangor casino’s doors. According to the state’s Gambling Control Board, the casino took in $698.4 million in bets, or gross slot machine income, over 363 days in 2010. About $636.7 million was paid back to players in the form of winnings. 

Of the $61.7 million net profit, $28.3 million was distributed among the city of Bangor, the state, the Maine harness racing industry and the University of Maine and Maine Community College scholarship funds.

Bangor is trying to parlay the slot machine revenues it receives — $546,834 in 2010, $522,796 in 2009 and $442,498 in 2008 — into something bigger for the community. The riverside area, surrounding the old Civic Center and the iconic Paul Bunyan statue, is fast becoming a polished jewel. Work on an expanded $65 million arena and convention center complex in the shadow of the old Civic Center is ongoing and scheduled for a 2013 opening.

“You’re going to have a harness-racing track, a conference facility, the casino, a trail along the waterfront that you can actually walk all the way into the downtown,” said Lewiston City Administrator Ed Barrett, who served as Bangor’s city manager when Hollywood Slots first came to town. “But it’s more than revenue to the city.”

Hollywood Slots has employed an estimated 400 people, and that’s helped the city, too.

“In terms of revenues the city receives, the employment that’s been created and bringing people in, it’s a good thing,” Barrett said. “Bangor has never had one big thing to draw people in. So what the city has tried to do is put together a set of attractions that would bring them in and get them to stay a bit longer. You have a children’s museum, the city forest, the waterfront. Now you have Hollywood Slots and shopping. Those are the kinds of things that can hopefully attract people.”

Some residents agree.

“Look at how clean it is down there,” said Julie Ewer of Clifton, a clerk at the Blue Seal hardware store near the Bangor Mall. “None of it was there before they came along. The concerts are there now because they’re there now.”

Russell Gillen of Computer Solutions on Bangor’s Main Street said he could tell the difference around his shop, about a mile from the casino.

“If you come down on a Friday when everything’s going on, every place is packed,” he said. “People are walking up and down the street. It’s sure better than looking down the street and seeing nothing. So I can’t say anything bad because it’s helped Bangor.”

A lot of people are sharing the profits, Gillen said. “It keeps the taxes down for everybody else, so everybody benefits in one way or another.”

Some residents, including Charlie Molineaux, simply love to gamble. He’s a regular at the casino, and he limits himself to $20 per day. When his money is gone, so is he.

“Sometimes it lasts a long time; sometimes it doesn’t,” said Molineaux, a salesman at the Stillwater Avenue Furniture store. “I’ve had $3,000 days. I’ve had $300 days the other way. It’s a nice atmosphere. I like the buffet, and if you play, you get benefits.”

The casino offers raffles for regular players and gives discounts on the hotel and food.

“I don’t see where it’s hurting anything,” he said. “You go in there with $20 bucks, you might walk out with $30. And you know the old saying, if you don’t play, you can’t win.”

Crime and addiction

Everyone doesn’t agree that the money is worth the change in the city. Carroll Conley, executive director of the Christian Civic League, said national studies show that casinos invariably attract crime.

“When you see movies about crime, they don’t talk about health care, they talk about casinos,” Conley said. “Why would we be surprised to see an increase in crime in communities with casinos?”

Bangor Police Chief Ron Gastia said the city’s experience hasn’t borne that out. While Bangor’s overall crime rate did increase from 52 crimes per 1,000 people in 2005 to 72 in 2009, it dropped back to 57 in 2010. That’s the lowest it’s been since Hollywood Slots opened in 2005.

Gastia said the overall crime rate had nothing to do with the casino.

“When I look at a 20-year history, we go up and down,” Gastia said. “We have a drug problem up here, and we have for years. And when you have a place with a drug problem, you are going to have property crimes. That’s point A. Point B, we are in a bad economy and that’s going to push property crimes up.”

Gastia said his department doesn’t get more calls from Hollywood Slots than from any other business.

“I was one of the more skeptical people when Hollywood Slots arrived,” he said. “I thought we’d see an increase in crime, an increase in traffic … And I can tell you, I was mistaken. At least to date, I was mistaken.”

There have been a few high-profile embezzling arrests, including the Bangor woman who embezzled more than $40,000 from residents at her assisted-living facility. Lucia Faria, who was convicted in 2008, said she took the money to play slots at the Bangor casino.

Conley said several examples of gambling addicts stealing from family members and employers to pay their gambling debts were never made public.

“And in the beginning, they don’t think they’re stealing,” Conley said. “They really believe they’re going to win the money they need to pay it all back.”

The Rev. Mark Worth, minister of Bangor’s Unitarian-Universalist Church, said that’s what happened to a woman in his congregation.

“She was stealing from her employer, using the money to feed her gambling addiction — with the intention of winning and paying the money back before her employer noticed,” Worth said. “The employer said he could turn her in to the police, but he didn’t want to if she paid it all back. She did, and the police never heard about it.”

Another Bangor gambler, who asked to be identified in this story only as Terry, said he has gambled away more than $100,000 at Hollywood Slots since it opened in 2005.

“I get so upset with myself, driving down the road yelling at myself,” he said. “But that’s the addiction. It’s a cycle. You get a high, you lose, you come down. Believe me, it’s not good.”

Problem gamblers can ban themselves from the casino, signing themselves out for as long as a year at a time. Terry said he’s signed himself out of Hollywood Slots at least three times.

“After a year, I’m in a better situation,” he said. “Then I feel like I’m in control. And I go back in.”

It’s a story many Bangor ministers hear, Worth said.

“It’s something that a lot of people just can’t handle,” Worth said. “One thing Bangor does not need — and I suspect Lewiston doesn’t need either — is another way to addict people.”

Addiction is the biggest problem for the Civic League’s Conley.

“Put aside the basic moral question for a moment,” Conley said. “Don’t think about gambling as a moral issue; think about the morality of the economics. We are counting on making money off of someone’s inability to control themselves. We are paving our roads and fixing our schools on the backs of someone’s addiction.”

 Too much

Even some Hollywood Slots supporters worry that Maine is going too far. Construction is under way on the state’s second casino in Oxford County, and voters could approve three more in November, including the Lewiston plan.

That may be too many, according to Molineaux, the $20-a-day player.

“Bangor is a good location; Oxford is good,” he said. “But if you put five in, everyone will get a little, instead of the ones that are around now getting a lot.”

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Considering Casinos: Crime rates for nation, state, Bangor and LA 2000-09

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