RUMFORD – Mountain Valley Variety bustles inside and out at noon, with cars lined up at the pumps and people grabbing lunch to go.

The convenience store is a hillside hub in this river town, perched at the corner of two busy streets, drawing from neighborhoods, the hospital and the paper mill.

Besides pizza and gas, the convenience store is busy selling scratch tickets and lottery numbers – it’s one of the state’s top agents in Oxford County.

As such, store manager Sue Clark is only initially shy about discussing her support for a statewide referendum question on the Nov. 4 ballot that will ask Maine voters to approve a casino for Oxford County.

“To me, gambling is a choice – just like coming in here and buying a scratch ticket is a choice,” she said, gesturing at the colorful spools of cardboard tickets.

Clark has visited the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods casinos in Connecticut and has been to Hollywood Slots in Bangor three times. The Bangor visits, she said, made an impression.

“It’s people working, people having a job,” she said.

Outside, pumping gas into her sport utility vehicle, Jackie Gammon questions any jobs promised by a new casino.

“I’m totally against it. If it does create jobs, it’s generally low-paying jobs,” said Gammon, owner of Chase Cyclery in Andover. “I’m not convinced that the money made in that casino is going to stay here in Maine. It hasn’t happened anywhere else.”

Differing opinions

Oxford is a big county, and like other regions in Maine is made up of smaller, diverse economies – from paper mill towns like Rumford and Jay to tourism-heavy communities like Bethel to the farm and manufactured-home-dependent stretch of Route 26 running through Oxford. It’s impossible to broadly paint the county as for or against a casino, and a day’s tour through the region last week found both supporters and opponents.

The citizen-initiated referendum question is backed by Las Vegas-based Olympia Gaming. Olympia wants to build a $100 million resort with slot machines, blackjack tables, roulette and other games in a yet-to-be-determined location in Oxford County. Olympia says the casino would generate 800 new jobs and $50 million annually in state taxes and that the company would split the proceeds with Maine taxpayers.

Opponents, notably Casinos No!, question the job creation numbers and whether Western Maine could realistically support such a resort casino. The group also says the casino would take Mainers’ money and ship it out of state and notes the social ills connected with gambling, including addiction and crime.

Arguments both for and against a casino resonate with Oxford County residents.

Each of those in favor of a casino pointed to economics.

Oxford County had an unemployment rate of 6.4 percent in August. The Maine average was 4.7 percent. The county had the fifth highest rate out of all 16 counties in Maine.

The county has taken its share of hits in recent years. Catalog giant L.L. Bean said it won’t open its seasonal call center in Oxford, costing about 250 temporary jobs. Burlington Homes in Oxford closed this year, laying off 70 people. The Maine Department of Labor submitted an National Emergency Grant to the U.S. Department of Labor early this month to cover workers impacted by job losses in the manufactured-housing sector in Oxford County.

And Wausau Paper plans to permanently shut a machine at its Jay mill before the end of the year, laying off 150.

On the positive side, NewPage Corp. canceled plans for a two-week fall shutdown of its Rumford paper mill that would have affected 500 employees.

But even that news is viewed skeptically by county residents.

“They could close the mill here tomorrow, really,” said Willy Blouin of Rumford, a retiree who until recently owned Mountain Valley Variety.

He stood chatting with Clark as she asked patrons and suppliers about the casino proposal.

“It’s up to everyone as an American to spend their money as they want to,” answered Larry Perry of Rumford. “Prove to me why it would be bad for the Rumford area.”

In Bethel, Jackie Bennett of Rumford Corner paused as she trimmed hedges at the Holidae House B&B. She moved here from Alabama in 1993, she said, and has been struck at how the middle class struggles here.

A casino, she said, would help support year-round tourism and would keep money in this state – capturing gamblers who now go out-of-state, sometimes by the busload.

She said she knows some people don’t want the casino.

“People don’t want change. They don’t like change and they want things to stay the same,” said Bennett. “But thats not the case. Things don’t work that way.”

In Oxford, at the Smedberg’s Crystal Spring Farm roadside shop, employee Kathy Pickett saw jobs in a casino.

“I think Oxford County needs something to take care of all the jobs we’ve lost,” said Pickett. “The manufactured home industry is in a downward spiral, it seems.”

Pickett said many people in Oxford County have the opinion that gambling is bad. But the state is already losing dollars to other states with casinos when residents travel there to gamble, she said.

“If people are going to gamble, they’re going to find a way to do it,” she said. “Why not bring the money to Maine?”

Gayle Smedberg, one of the owners of Crystal Spring Farm, has her own answer to that question. She’s played slots while on vacation in Aruba and then in Atlantic City. But, in Atlantic City about 10 years ago, she saw an entire family camped out on a row of slot machines, and they seemed desperate to win. She saw it as a problem and worries it could spread to Maine.

“I havent enjoyed playing slots since,” she said. “I think I’m going to vote no.”

The state has had mixed results with gambling votes over the past five years.

In 2003, voters shot down a plan for a tribal casino in Southern Maine, while approving a proposal to allow slot machines at harness-racing tracks, known as “racinos.”

Last year, voters nixed the Passamaquoddy Tribes request for permission to build a Washington County racino.

The 2003 racino question passed in Oxford County by a vote of 56 percent in favor to 44 percent opposed. Oxford County voters, however, rejected the tribal casino by a vote of 38 percent in favor and 62 percent opposed.

The margin was closer during last years Washington County referendum, with county residents rejecting the racino by a vote of 49 percent in favor and 51 percent opposed.

Jim Melcher, a political scientist at the University of Maine at Farmington, said there was no guarantee that even Oxford County would vote for the casino.

“It seems there’s already a pretty large built-in vote against casinos,” said Melcher. “It would take a very well-organized campaign to overcome that.”

At least anecdotally, Melcher said, it looks like the gambling issue hasn’t seemed to break down along political party lines, that native Mainers are more in favor while transplants are against it. And it seems to have more favor among blue-collar workers, he said.

Back in Rumford, outside Mountain Variety, John and Lillian Weaver sat in their car.

The retired couple moved to town a couple of years ago from Connecticut, and both support the idea of an Oxford County casino for a simple reason: entertainment.

Yes, it would bring jobs to the county, said John Weaver, but it would also be a place to go out.

They visit family in Connecticut now, said Lillian, and she always hits the casinos when shes there.

They used to live near Ledyard, Conn., home to Foxwoods. When Lillian couldnt sleep at night, shed go relax at the casino for a few hours, she said.

Question 2 is her motivation to vote, she said.

“I havent voted for many, many years maybe 40 years,” she said.

“I’m going to vote this year, just because of the casino. I’ve got to make sure it gets in here, so I don’t have go to go Connecticut.”