LEWISTON — Flip through the latest version of “Maine Invites You” — the state’s 212-page official tourism guide — and you will see a lot of lobsters, a lot of moose, a lot of majestic pine trees, whitewater rafts, snow-covered ski slopes, beautiful sand beaches, rocky coastlines, quaint cottages, log lodges and fields of pink and purple lupine.

Played up are these iconic images of Maine including at least two full-page ads for the state’s most famous retailer and outdoor sports promoter, L.L. Bean.

What you won’t see is anyone plugging coins into a slot machine or a group of people gathered around a roulette wheel or a blackjack table.

Page 65 is as close as it gets to anything that says gambling: There’s a full-page ad, offered by the Maine Harness Racing Promotion Board that features four horse-drawn sulkies in what appears to be a tight heat racing around a dirt track. 

Devoid from the guide is any outright reference to Maine’s betting and gambling establishments, although the supplemental guide to the state’s inns and bed-and-breakfasts does feature an ad for Hollywood Slots Hotel and Raceway in Bangor, the closest thing Maine currently has to a casino.

How an expanded and possibly expanding gambling industry will factor into the state’s ongoing tourist and business attraction efforts seems to be an unsolved puzzle for many industry and state officials tasked with branding Maine to those from away.

All Maine offers

Carolann Ouellette, director of the state’s Office of Tourism, said the themes highlighted in the brochure rotate from year to year, but that the office’s website does feature a page on gaming and wagering.

Ouellette said her office doesn’t promote any one activity but the state as a whole, and its goal is to get tourists to move around the state’s eight tourism regions.

“Our job is to get all of that out there to the visitors,” Ouellette said.

Gov. Paul LePage has taken a “will of the people” approach to casino gambling.

“The people of Maine make our state what it is and are ultimately the best stewards of our brand,” LePage spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett said in a prepared statement. “Gov. LePage believes the voters should make determinations on the future of casino gambling in Maine and, once the voters speak, their views must be respected.”

Bennett said LePage’s focus is on helping the private sector create jobs while preserving the things valued most in Maine.

“The voters have made it clear that gaming is going to be a part of this mix and it is up to us to make sure that casinos are a good fit with everything else that Maine has to offer,” Bennett said.

By the spring of 2012 the state’s second casino, to be built and operated by Black Bear Entertainment in the town of Oxford, will be open. The casino was approved by a narrow margin in a statewide vote last November.

This November, Maine voters will decide two more casino ballot initiatives that could add three more casinos to the state — in Biddeford, Lewiston and Calais — bringing the total, if passed by voters, to five.

Divisions highlighted in campaigns

Probably no one has spoken out more strongly about the conflicts casinos pose to Maine’s unique brand than L.L. Bean’s owners.

That concern is highlighted in the campaign contributions made to CasinosNo!, the political action committee formed to oppose various casino initiatives in Maine.

The PAC has been largely funded by L.L. Bean Chairman Leon A. Gorman and his wife, Lisa. Also contributing heavily to the PAC over the years were other Bean and Gorman family members, corporate executives and the company itself.

The Gormans and the Beans donated $290,000 of the $328,000 donated to the PAC in October 2010, campaign finance records show.

The donations began during campaigns against casinos in Maine in 2002-03. Portland-based political consultant Dennis Bailey, who directed the PAC, said the donations show how Gorman and others in the company felt about casinos as businesses and what they felt an influx of them in Maine would do to the state’s brand, the Maine mystique.

At first, while Gorman was supportive — he donated $1,000 to the anti-casino cause — “He wasn’t all gung-ho,” Bailey said.

But after doing some of his own research on casinos, Gorman called Bailey back, “and then he was absolutely all fired up,” Bailey said. “He thought they were a fraud. They were a nothing; they were not making anything.”

The state’s brand and L.L. Bean’s brand have been so synonymous that some, including former Maine Gov. John McKernan, have suggested it was difficult to determine where L.L. Bean left off and the state began and vice versa, Bailey said.

“The image and the brand L.L. Bean had was so different from what the casinos were selling, it was just offensive to him, offensive to him as a person — this is not what we should aspire to,” Bailey said. “That was his motivation. He just felt that casinos represented everything that Maine and L.L. Bean were not, or it was just the opposite of what you think of when you think of L.L. Bean and Maine.”

A statement issued by L.L. Bean in 2003 in support of CasinosNo! highlighted these concerns.

“There is a stark contrast between the values and attributes for which Maine is known and those associated with casino gambling,” the statement read. “Maine is one of the few states in the nation that can actually claim a ‘brand’ identity. Maine is known for its rugged outdoor image, uncompromised natural beauty, quality products, low crime, family-friendly environment, a corruption-free political environment and the Yankee ingenuity and sound work ethic of our people. These are the attributes Maine promotes to the world through its tourism and business promotion programs.”

John Oliver, L.L. Bean’s vice president for public relations, said Thursday the company had not made a public statement on casinos since that time. He said that statement was largely aimed at a proposal for a very large casino in Sanford, which was defeated at the polls. Oliver said some people connected to the company have continued to oppose casinos as individuals.

“Although the Sanford casino was somewhat unique for its scale, many of the same arguments remain for Maine people to carefully consider when voting on casino proposals,” Oliver wrote in an email message.

Oliver also offered his personal view, writing that with the approval of Hollywood Slots in Bangor and a casino in Oxford, the landscape had changed.

“The battle now here in Maine will be among gambling interests competing to claim a piece of turf now that the door has been opened,” Oliver wrote. “The consumer dollars that go into casinos will come from Maine people and will not be spent elsewhere in the Maine economy. While some communities may consider themselves winners by hosting a casino, other communities and businesses will suffer the economic losses and other consequences.”

Casino’s perspective

Dan Cashman, a spokesman for Hollywood Slots Hotel and Raceway in Bangor, said his company’s record in Maine has defied, over time, the negative perceptions that some people hold.

“Part of what makes it a draw is it is a well-run facility,” Cashman said. “People who go there see the professionalism that goes along , not only on the gaming floor, but with the restaurant, the banquet facilities and with the hotel itself, and also what (it does) for the community.”

The idea that the attraction to the state’s natural landscapes and outdoor recreational activities would be diminished by the presence of one or two casinos is unfounded, Cashman said. Especially if those casinos are operated professionally and in ways that enhance the gaming industry’s reputation and create another activity for people.

“Many of the images that come to mind when you think of Maine — the hiking, the snowmobiling, the boating — they are all, for the most part, recreational in nature,” Cashman said. “There are many different assets in Maine for recreation, and gaming is becoming another one of those. You can have the finest landscape in the world, and if there’s nothing for them to do when they get here, they would not spend very much time here.”

Paced growth

Peter Martin, the government relations adviser for Black Bear Entertainment, the owners of the casino to be built in Oxford, said steady, conservative growth done correctly wouldn’t erode the state’s brand.

“I don’t believe a couple of well-placed casinos in Maine changes that image, particularly if they are built in the aesthetics of what Maine is,” Martin said. Black Bear’s project will fit “very conducively into the Maine landscape,” he said.

“And the interior will lend itself to a Maine feeling or a lodge feeling,” he said. “We don’t plan on putting Foxwoods in Western Maine, nor do we plan on putting Caesar’s Palace there. We are planning on putting a site that if you were to drive by it, I suspect that if there wasn’t a sign out front that told you there was a casino inside, you would never know, so I don’t believe that hurts Maine’s brand. Not at all.”

He said the company is concerned about the effects of too fast of an expansion or the potential to more than double the number of casinos in the state within a year.

Black Bear is not opposed to the proposals moving toward a vote in 2012, but it is concerned that too much, too soon could spell trouble.

“I think next November will be a very telling time on what the voters in Maine are prepared to do as far as any gambling expansion goes,” Martin said. “I think Maine is ready to stick a toe in the water on a gambling expansion. I don’t know whether it’s ready to stick both feet in.”

Brand value

Matt Jacobsen, president of Maine and Co., a private group that works to attract business to Maine, said there’s broad agreement that the state’s brand — its “mystique” — is well-known, and maintaining its strength in the market can’t be overlooked.

“What we all agree is there is a mystique around the beauty of Maine, so there is a nature path to this,” Jacobsen said. “Poland Spring and L.L. Bean have created that part of the brand, and what efforts we do around tourism seem to latch on to that Maine. Then, there’s another Maine that’s around quality and work ethic and a fair price for a fair product, and that whole aspect of Maine and Maine’s history. Those are the two places you build on.”

Jacobsen said a casino could fit into those categories.

“So long as it’s done right,” he said. “You can’t transport a sort of skid row — think of the worst casino in the worst part of the town — you can’t have that here. But a high-quality tourism experience that sort of blends in with that broader theme is workable.”

The jury’s out still

For others in Maine’s business community, the jury remains out on casinos, said Dana Connors, executive director of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce. Connors said many chamber members see casinos as “an attraction, but not as the attraction.”

Connors said the cases for and against casinos have been replayed over and over as each subsequent referendum was voted on.

“The debate has been consistently the same,” Connors said. “Is it right for the economy? Is it right for Maine’s image?”

The close victory that Black Bear enjoyed last fall was by no means a mandate by the people to fling open the doors to unfettered casino gambling in Maine, and chamber members recognize that, Connors said.

“Maine has had a history of this being proposed and rejected a number of times,” Connors said. The close decision in November reflects three or four factors all coming together to push Black Bear’s Oxford casino over the top, Connors said.

Those factors included the Oxford project being backed by a group of well-known and accomplished Maine businesspeople, a history with Hollywood Slots in Bangor that has been largely a positive one for that region, an economy with a high unemployment rate and people concerned about their own futures, coupled with a very active and well-funded pro-casino campaign, Connors said.

“Over time, people came to understand it a little better, both the good and the bad, and were able to put it in context within their own set of priorities,” he said.

The projects to be voted on this fall have similar components going for them, especially strong local connections.

“That local connection is important because there is a lot of fear and anxiety around gambling and how it can change the face of your community or your region or your state, and that local connection helps give people some comfort,” Connors said.

How Maine’s iconic brand could change with the advent and growth in the gambling sector remains a “chapter that’s not written yet,” Connors said.

sthistle@sunjournal.com

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