LOVELL, Maine - Janice Sage's career as an innkeeper appeared to be coming full circle when she announced this spring that she would hold an essay contest with her 210-year-old country inn as the prize. In 1993, Sage entered a similar contest, put on by the previous owner of the Center Lovell Inn, and won.This time around, losing contestants are questioning whether the competition was a scam. And the Maine State Police are investigating whether the contest violated state gaming laws.
The website for the essay contest has been taken down. But plug "wincenterlovellinn.com" into a search of the Internet Archive and up pops a cached version of the site. "Have you ever dreamed of owning a Country Inn and restaurant in New England?" Janice Sage asks on the site. "After 22 successful years, it is time for me to retire," Sage writes, "Now, I would like to fulfill someone else’s dream."
"To date, we have a total of 10 complaints, give or take one here or there, from both the state of Maine and outside the state," says Sgt. Michael Johnston. Johnston handles licensing, gaming and weapons complaints for the Maine State Police, which is now investigating the contest.
Participants paid $125 to enter an essay into the competition. MPBN was not able to reach Janice Sage for comment on this story by airtime. But in earlier interviews with newspapers, including the Portland Press Herald and the Boston Globe, the innkeeper said she had gotten fewer than the 7,500 entries she was hoping for, but enough to finance her retirement and part ways with the $900,000 inn.
The winning essay, announced earlier this month, was submitted by a couple who own a restaurant in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Shortly after the announcement, says Sgt. Johnston, the complaints started coming in.
"They feel that this was a scam or that Ms. Sage did not do it according to the rules - that she wasn't faithful to the rules and that they were duped," Johnston says. "They feel it was unfair and a lot of them are requesting a refund."
A group sprang up on Facebook called the Center Lovell Inn Contest Fair Practices Commission. Two of its leaders did not return MPBN's calls and Facebook messages seeking comment. But in an interview with the Boston Globe, founder Kelly Prass Collins accuses Sage of deceptive marketing practices, telling the newspaper, "In short, Janice Sage was advertising a contest for ‘dreamers’ who would never have the chance to own an inn and restaurant, and then handed the prize to just such a business owner."
The winners of the competition, Prince and Rose Adams, could not be reached for comment. Sgt. Michael Johnston, meantime, says the state's investigation will focus on a very narrow question: Was the essay contest a game of chance or skill? "Now, generally speaking, an essay contest is not a game of chance, it's a game of skill," Johnston says.
In Maine you need a license to run a game of chance. The outcomes of such games are outside the control of contestants -- dependent on things like the roll of some dice or the spin of a wheel.
"What we're looking into is to make sure the manner in which this was conducted was, in fact, a game of skill and that is it was conducted in conformance with the rules," Johnston says. "It is a very narrow investigation, limited strictly to that, because that's what our unit is in charge of enforcing and regulating."
Johnston says the investigation may be wrapped up by the end of the week. He says contestants may want consult private legal counsel to see if other state or federal laws may have been broken.
Editor's note: In response to MPBN's request for comment, Kelley Collins, one of the organizers of the Facebook group calling itself Center Lovell Contest Fair Practices Commission, sent the following statement:
"Our goal will be complete when the contest has been investigated by the federal agencies that have the ability and jurisdiction to do so. We will feel satisfied with any judgement made by those authorities which have fully investigated the contest. We're hoping to gain answers to our questions and an awareness of the need for all contests to be regulated and overseen by impartial and qualified authorities."