The Dennis Bailey Full Employment Act

It looks like Maine voters may very well get to decide the fate of a proposed casino in Oxford County. And I’m quite sure no one could be happier than the casino-buster himself, Dennis Bailey.

Hello Billable Hour$.

This casino proposal is the brainchild of Seth Carey, an attorney from the Rumford area. His group turned in more than 70,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office on January 14th. We should know in a month if they have enough signatures, which should still leave plenty of time for Mr. Bailey to raise the funds from the usual suspects to defeat this proposal.

As for the proposal, according to the summary of the bill on the Secretary of State’s website, we will be asked to vote on the following:

This initiated bill authorizes Evergreen Mountain Enterprises, LLC to operate a gaming facility at a single site in Oxford County. The legislative body and voters of any municipality in which the site is located must approve the site for the operation of the gaming facility. The gaming facility is authorized to contain slot machines, bazaar games conducted solely for merchandise prizes, lottery games, video facsimiles, card games, table games and other games of chance, including without limitation blackjack, poker, dice, roulette, baccarat, money-wheels and bingo. The initiated bill removes the limit on the total number of slot machines that are allowed to be registered in this State. The minimum age to play a slot machine or gaming device is lowered from 21 years of age to 19 years of age. The initiated bill provides that, other than the approved commercial race tracks in the State that operate slot machines, the gaming facility operated by Evergreen Mountain Enterprises, LLC must be the only gaming facility in the State for at least 10 years. The initiated bill provides for regulation of the gaming facility by the Department of Public Safety, Gambling Control Board.

I think the short translation would be, some guy in western Maine gets to own a full blown casino, and have a monopoly for 10 years. He will share some of the loot with others. (You can see the whole list on the website link above) Also, he lowers the minimum age form 21 to 9. Just kidding…it’s 19, not 9. That was me trying to help Dennis Bailey get a jump start on the kiddie casino angle of the campaign.

Of course, if the economy continues to tank and Dennis is too busy to care, then maybe we might get a casino after all.