AUGUSTA — The developers of a $165 million Oxford County casino urged lawmakers Wednesday to clarify a portion of the state’s gambling law that they say threatens the project.

The law states that a casino or slot machine license cannot be awarded if another gambling facility is located within 100 miles. Proponents of LD 667 said the bill would define the 100-mile radius as road miles, not air miles.

Defining the radius in air miles, or a straight line, could potentially doom Black Bear Entertainment’s request for a gambling license or subject it to legal action by anti-casino groups or competing casino developers.

In air miles, the proposed casino is within a 100-mile radius of the Hollywood Slots gaming facility in Bangor. The project is 125 miles from Bangor by road.

The owners of Hollywood Slots, Penn National Gaming Inc., opposed the Oxford casino prior to November’s citizen referendum that authorized the project. However, representatives from Penn National did not testify during the public hearing before the Legislature’s Legal and Veteran Affairs Committee.

The bill is sponsored by Sen. Debra Plowman, R-Hampden. Plowman told the committee that defining the radius in road miles was a common-sense solution. 

“The key question is not how far apart the facilities are as the crow flies but what their location is in relation to potential customers,” Plowman said, adding that customers visiting the casinos would travel on roads, “not in straight lines.”

Plowman’s bill is backed by Gov. Paul LePage, who recently said, “Crows don’t gamble.”

Plowman said the bill would allow Black Bear to continue its licensing and development process without the threat of litigation by a competing project.

Mary Taylor of Cumberland, who raises racing horses, was the only person to testify against Plowman’s bill. Taylor said it was Black Bear’s fault for including the 100-mile provision in its referendum language.

Peter Martin, representing Black Bear, told the panel that Black Bear interpreted the mileage to mean road miles. Martin assured the committee that the clarifying bill would not affect either the Biddeford or Lewiston gaming proposals because proponents of those projects have stricken the 100-mile provision from their respective referendums.

Martin’s testimony was followed by Peter Connell, a Norway resident and construction coordinator for Ocean Properties, the firm developing the $120 million Biddeford Downs project. Connell spoke in favor of Plowman’s bill, saying the Oxford Hills region desperately needs the casino project to move forward.

“We have double-digit unemployment in Oxford Hills and we’ve watched manufacturing and good-paying jobs disappear for far too long,” he said.

John Morris, commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, also backed the proposal, saying it would remove all doubt about the intent of the 100-mile requirement.

Earlier this month, a lawyer for Scarborough Downs, the horse-racing facility that is seeking to build a racino in Biddeford, told the Sun Journal that the Oxford project violated the 100-mile provision.

Neither Scarborough Downs officials nor developers of a proposed casino in Lewiston testified Wednesday.

Black Bear Entertainment lawyer Daniel Walker told the committee that interpreting the radius in air miles would prevent the casino from being built in Oxford County “or in the state of Maine.”

Plowman’s proposal will undergo a work session on March 25.

smistler@sunjournal.com