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Sunday, January 11, 2004
Should racing industry be saved?
Copyright © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||||||||||
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Also on this page: In Depth: Gambling in Maine | |||||||||||||
SACO — A drive through Dupuis Farms' hayfields is a tour of farms that have failed. Over each rise, farm owner Lynn-Marie Plouffe points to dairy operations forced to give up, surviving by selling firewood or house lots instead of milk. Her diesel Ford F-350 growls over the snowy fields that Plouffe, a top Maine harness-racing horse breeder, says will be able to remain open space only if her industry survives. If she can't keep raising racehorses, she won't be able to make a farm-based living from land that has been in her family's care for more than 80 years. She can envision houses on the hayfields she and her 85-year-old father, Raymond Dupuis, still work every summer. "For me, it would be very heartbreaking," said Plouffe, as she gestured at the fields that used to be worked by neighboring farmers. "It's very depressing - they would have liked to have stayed in business, too." From the industry's point of view, allowing slots at racetracks would be to the public good. Open space like Dupuis Farm will be preserved, a farming way of life will be maintained, the state's agricultural fairs will survive. Critics, though, note that many other industries have suffered in Maine, from dairy farming to maritime fishing, shoemaking and sardine canning, and none of them turned to slot machines to save them. Allowing slots into Maine won't solve harness racing's problems, argues Dennis Bailey, head of Casinos No!, a group fighting racinos in Maine. It will merely address a symptom of the problem. "The roots (of harness racing) are in agrarian Maine. That's just not where we are any more as a state," said Bailey. "We're holding on to an industry that's unfortunately a lot like the shoe industry. We just can't hold on to it anymore. "The problem with the harness racing industry is not lack of slots, it's lack of people taking part in their sport, or entertainment - whatever it is - recreation," he added. "Our argument is, you've got an industry that's not as appealing as it once was for a variety of reasons, you've got to get people in the stands without relying on slots." Plouffe and her father know all about industries the state couldn't maintain. Twenty-five years ago, their farm had 90,000 chickens, 160 head of cattle and 10 sows. The bottom dropped out of each of those agricultural markets, and Plouffe and her father turned to breeding harness-racing horses to keep the farm going. The well-tended barns at Dupuis Farm are silent reminders of hard times in Maine's agricultural history. The barn housing 50 horse stalls bears the telltale length and design of a one-time chicken house. The farm has adapted to meet changing times. Today, they're the largest breeders in the state, but with harness racing's future uncertain, Plouffe is wondering how much further she and other farmers can adapt. "It almost makes you feel like history repeats itself," Plouffe said. In this case, the industry is trying to break the pattern by extending a feature that's always been part of harness racing, said Robert Tardy, lobbyist for Scarborough Downs. That's why slots have been proposed for harness racing, but not for fishing, say, or the paper industry. "The connection, basically, is that harness racing has been a gambling industry historically. We're not expanding the venues, just changing, adding to the type of product we're offering," said Tardy. "We want to survive." Other folks in other industries want to survive, too. This past Friday morning, Barbara Stevenson was awaiting the return of one of her three fishing trawlers, a boat that was coming back to the harbor with a broken power shaft - a costly repair. It was just the latest hardship for a fleet owner who's suffered along with the rest of her industry. She said she didn't blame the harness-racing industry for grasping at slot machines. "But if they can have it, why can't I?" she said. "They should allow each boat to have one slot machine, and we should be able to put it anywhere we want. What's the difference? There's no connection between slot machines and racing. Yeah, they both gamble, but I don't get the connection." Of course, said Stevenson, if every ailing industry were allowed to have slots, then the economic impact would be diluted beyond all worth. "Obviously, they should try whatever they can try, but if it works for them, why is it only limited to them?" Stevenson asked. "(However), if it's not limited to them, it won't do what they want it to do - it's sort of one of those catch-22s." Dairyman Warren Knight of Smiling Hill Farm in Scarborough said that while there may be some grumbling in the milk industry about the potential slot-related aid for horse racing, he thinks the criticism is untenable. "Why can't, for instance, the lumber industry or the dairy industry put up slot machines in their foyers to help the bottom line? I don't look at it from a fairness issue," Knight said. "I look at it from a historical point of view. I think the rub is that harness racing has traditionally been a venue for gambling. That's the reason the racino issue originally passed." But, said Bailey of Casinos No!, there's a lot of other groups in Maine that have a gambling heritage, and they'll be able to make similar arguments and further expand slots in the state if they're initially allowed at the tracks. "Once you allow anybody to come in based on that premise, how do you say 'no' to the next ones?" asked Bailey. "The first one will be Kiwanis. They'll say 'We're losing members; we want slots.' How do you say no?" "I just think once the slot genie is out of the bottle, it's going to be hard to get him back in and it's going to get bigger and fatter," he added. "All these little groups are going to come in; there'll be lawsuits over it." In addition, Bailey said he wonders about what will happen if the industry gets slots, but starts ailing again in 10 years. "What are they going to say next - parlor games?" said Bailey. Gov. John Baldacci opposed the racino referendum, but said he believes the people have spoken. He is working with the Legislature to tighten the racino law to define regulation and scope of the industry. Baldacci's senior policy adviser, Dick Davies, said there are reasons to save an industry when other industries that couldn't generate enough money to survive have left the state or died off. "Perhaps because we've seen the impact on the state and local communities when these other industries have left Maine," Davies said in a written response to the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. "Perhaps because racing, and the agricultural community of which it is a part, has been able to make the case effectively to state policymakers that the loss of racing would weaken even more an agricultural community that already has taken a number of hits over the years - eggs, broilers, sugar beets, blueberries, etc." There are both hard economic reasons and softer quality of life reasons for ensuring that harness racing survives with the addition of slots. According to a 2000 University of Maine report done for the Harness Racing Promotions Board, the industry contributes $50.7 million to the state economy each year, supporting just over 1,600 jobs. But the study also shows an industry in decline. The amount of money wagered at live events in 1982 was $27.9 million; in 1995 it was $11.3 million. Race attendance dropped from over 400,000 in 1986 to just over 221,000 in 1995. UMaine economist Todd Gabe wrote that report, and said when he finished the study, he came away with an impression of a mature industry going downhill. It shares some common ground with Maine's other mature industries that have faced competitive challenges, Gabe suggested. "In manufacturing, new technologies can be used to maintain competitiveness," Gabe said. "In a way, you could think of slot machines as a new technology that can help the industry stay competitive with the other forms of gambling." Even on a regional landscape, he said, "this is just an extension of high competition for economic development among states." In that way, he said, it wasn't different from the way other industries receive forms of governmental support, such as favorable trade policies or tax incentives. Gabe said that even if people play slots and never bet on horses, the money that the games provide the races will help. "It's kind of a circle: You need good purses to attract good horses, and you need good horses and good races to attract fans. Anything they can do to supplement the purses would attract good horses. Anything you can do to pump up the purses would certainly help," Gabe said. Quality of life reasons to allow slots at tracks are harder to quantify. "People want to see open space, they want to see farms. Without making them economically viable, those pastures are either going to grow up to poplars and alder or grow up to houses," Tardy said. "Racing is an integral part of Maine's agricultural industry. Whenever you lose a part, you hurt the whole industry." In his hometown of Palmyra, there are only three dairy farms where there were once 13, Tardy said. "If you were to take harness racing out of the picture entirely Maine, you probably would cause the almost imminent demise of another 40 dairy farmers," he suggested. "You certainly would have an impact on the potato farmers - a lot of them raise oats on a rotation crop, and they've got to have a place to sell it. "I'm not a harness racing fan - I don't even like horses. But I realize how important it is that you don't lose any part of the agriculture infrastructure unnecessarily." In addition, said Barry W. Norris, chairperson of the Maine Harness Racing Promotion Board, proceeds from the industry go to support the state's agricultural fairs, "from horse pulling to Grammy June's first-place ribbon for her jam." The industry reaches into all parts of rural Maine, said Norris, but that decentralized aspect is a detriment to its success in getting assistance. "If we were an industry in one little town in Maine and the industry were about to go out, everyone would do everything in their power to keep it intact," Norris said. "Because we're spread out across the state and we're diversified, people say, 'Too bad for you.' " There are some very basic reasons for harness racing's decline. "When harness racing started out, it was the only show in town," said Tardy. "If you wanted to bet, you bet on horses or you played poker on Saturday night in somebody's house. "Over the years, there's been (increased) competition for that discretionary dollar." Everything from MegaBucks and the 25-plus varieties of scratch tickets to high-stakes and charity bingos have diverted some of the gambling dollars, said Tardy. And, he added, there's many other ways to spend entertainment money these days, such as an often-costly trip to the movies. Bailey said he doesn't buy the argument that other forms of gambling have hurt harness racing. "There's an awful lot of people buying scratch tickets who never have and never will go to a horse race," said Bailey. "It's just not the same. I don't believe people are making choices of going to the track or buying a lottery ticket." Another problem, said Tardy, is that gambling on horses is complicated. That's one of the appeals of bringing in slots, he said. "I can figure out where the token goes in and where the handle is, but to figure out how to place a trifecta wager," Tardy said, "I'm a little hesitant." Maybe the industry should have tried to teach more people about how to bet on horses, said Tardy, but then people would be even more criticized. "They'd come at us like we were Joe Camel," he said. Noted Davies, "Racing fans are growing older and are not being replaced as they die off because it isn't a sport that attracts young people." Bailey agreed that the complexity of horse betting was a problem for harness racing, a barrier to entry for new fans. But adding slots at the tracks won't solve that problem, he said. "What you'll end up with is a slot machine parlor with a quaint little horse track in the back," said Bailey. "They're subsidizing the industry, but it doesn't make the sport any more popular." Staff Writer Matt Wickenheiser can be contacted at 791-6316 or at:
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