Permanent Facility Approved for Bangor's Hollywood Slots

Hollywood Slots in Bangor will be moving to a new facility in 2007.

The support for slots Monday night came as no surprise. City officials have been some of the biggest cheerleaders for the permanent racino.

Penn National Gaming Inc. has been operating a temporary slots facility with 475 machines at the former Miller's Restaurant. Its permanent facility will have 1,500 slot machines and will generate at least $2.1 million a year for the city of Bangor.

Penn National's permanent racino will include a parking garage, restaurant and retail space. Penn's off-track betting operation, now operated out of the grandstand at city-owned Bangor Raceway horse track, also will be housed in the new facility.

Construction on the new complex, which will be located on Main Street across from Bass Park, will begin in 2007 or 2008. Most of the land Penn National is arranging to buy is occupied by a Holiday Inn, which will be razed.

The proposal allowed a so-called racetrack casino, or "racino," at either of the state's two existing harness-racing tracks in Bangor and Scarborough with local approval. Bangor voters gave approval for the machines, but Scarborough voters did not.

In the end, Bangor chose not to put the racino at the Bangor Raceway. Instead, it chose to put the facility across the street. That still met the requirement of being within a 2,000-foot radius of the track.