Peter eam MONDAY TUG MISHAP V man presui A FORMER North Vancouver man is missing and presum- ed drowned following a tugboat mishap late Monday after- aoon near Denham Rocks, northwest of Stewart Islard. Campbell River RCMP called off the search for 39-year-old John Herbert Farley early last week. Farley and Greg Lang, owner of the 34-foot tugboat Widget, were pulling three 50-foot barges loaded with a mobile home and logging equipment through Cordero Channel when strong ebb tides, pulling opposite to the direction of the boat and barges, flipped and sank the boat. The tug managed to call out a mayday before capsizing. RO ers NEWS photo Nell Lucente STANLEY SCHOPP, manager of a North Vancouver apartment block, peers through the mangled shell of a door destroyed by two youths a week before they were due to be evicted. The apartment they were renting was ruined, leaving the Schopps with a big mess and a big neadache figaring out who was responsible for the cost of the damage. Street life From page 7 ched into the walls,and clothes and garbage were left all over. My husband filled 15 big garbage bags with what they left.” Damage to the suite has been estimated at $3,000. — But according to Art Scott, spokesman for the Ministry of Social Service and Housing, the program policy manual for the Outreach program (recently renamed Reconnect) stipulates the superintendent of family and child services does not accept lia- bility for damages created by a child in care. “Liability is based on an agreement between the landlord and the tenant,’’ Scott said. Said Schopp: ‘‘Luckily our in- surance will cover the damage, but we’re out the deductible.’’ The Reconnect program, covering the Vancouver and Vic- toria areas, is targeted to prevent kids from becoming street kids and to help street kids get off the addressed street and reintegrate into the community. Street kids are defined as young persons under 19 involved in street crimes, pro- stitution or drugs. “Living arrangements possible under the program include family living, group homes and in- dependent living arrangements, such as living in an apartment. An independent living program participant must be 17 to 18 years of age and a ward of the gov- ernment. The participant enters into a written agreement with the superintendent covering items such as school attendance, budgetary and behavioral goals. “Placement in an independent living situation may only be con- sidered after arrangements such as group homes and foster homes have been tried. It’s not the first option,’’ said Scott. The program was recently granted an additional $280,000 to its $1.7 million budget for the 87-88 fiscal year ending in April. INDEX Business............27 Christmas News......29 Classified Ads........55 Comics ............. 49 Fashion.............21 Lifestyles............45 Sports..............99 TV Listings..........53 Travel .............. 51 What’s Going On.....50 Weather: Sunday through Tuesday, rain. Highs near 10°C. Bet “Greg was picked out of the water by a boat nearby which answered the mayday,’’ Farley’s mother, Rita Farley, said. ‘John was thrown quite far. Greg saw him go down twice.”’ She said although Farley had worked on the water all his life, he didn’t know how to swim. “I'm still in shock about this,” Rita Farley said. Farley left behind his wife, Julie, 3+ Sunday, November 22, 1987 - North Shore News drowned his 3 1/2-year-old daughter, Sara, and his two-year-old son, Myles, as well as a brother and two sisters living on the Sunshine Coast. Farley had lived with his family near Surge Narrows on Quadra Island for the past 10 years. Rita Farley said her son had tisked his life locally 10 years ago when he helped firefighters pull in a burning houseboat near Mos- quito Creek. CONVENTION FACILITIES GONE THE LOSS of the North Shore’s International Plaza Hotel will have economic repercussions far beyond the 136 full and part-time workers who lost their jobs with the hotel’s recent closure. “K's a terrible loss,’’ North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce tourism committee chairman Judi Ainsworth said Thursday. ‘‘It was really the only true full-facility hotel on the North Shore. There is nothing right now that can really replace it.” Ainsworth said the hotel’s closure means the North Shore will lose to downtown hotels the major mini-conventions the 152-room Plaza had the facility to host. She said, as an example, media covering the March I Molson Men’s Giant Slalom world cup ski race will now stay at a Vancouver hotel because no North Shore hotel other than the Plaza has the capac- ity or facilities required for such an international deluge. The Plaza was the homebase for the approximately 150 members of the international media who covered the July 26 to Aug. 2, 1987 Federation Cup by NEC hosted by West Vancouver’s Hollyburn Country Club. In addition, Ainsworth said, local businesses that made regular use of the Plaza’s ‘six meeting rooms will now have to look elsewhere. The Plaza, she said, was the on- ly full-facility hotel on the North Shore that could accommodate up tv 250 people for conventions. The Lonsdale Quay can accommodate up to 120 conventioneers and has half as much banquet and less than half as much meeting space as the Plaza had. And although the 100-room Coach House can accommodate up to 350 people for conventions, Ainsworth said the hotel caters to a different market and does not have the same facilities as the Plaza. Lehndorff Property Manage- ment Ltd., the owner of the Inter- national Plaza complex, announc- ed Sept. 14 that the hotel would close Nov. 2 and its rooms be con- verted into rental units similar to the 368 apartments already in the complex. The president for the hotel’s owner, VIP Hotels Ltd. of Toron- to, said in the Sept. 16 News story chronicling the Plaza closure, that the decision to close the hotel was based on such grim economic fac- tors as projected hotel occupancy rates of 22 per cent for December, January and February. Displaced employees of the hotel have since been assisted in finding new employment by an industrial adjustment committee set up by the hotel. TIMOTHY RENSHAW News Reporter Though the North Shore has nearly 1,000 units of overnight ac- commodation, from campgrounds to hotels, only the 30-room Park Royal Hotel, the 57-room Lons- dale Quay Hotel and the 152-room International Plaza serviced the competitive corporate end of the hotel market. Far from viewing the Plaza’s demise as the beneficial Joss of a large competitor, Park Royal and Lonsdale Quay management view it as the tragic loss of a falle compatriot. . rare PARK Royal Hotel general man- ager Maric Corsi...‘‘sets us back five years.”’ Park Royal Hotel general man- ager Mario Corsi said tht Interna- tional Plaza’s closure “‘sets us back five years. Clientele will stay downtown. And there will be a real shortage of meeting space on the North Shore.”’ Though the Park Royal current- ly has plans to expand to 45 rooms, Corsi said his hotel will not benefit from the Plaza’s closure because the Park Royal attracts a different clientele. Lonsdale Quay Hotel general manager Kirk Johnson estimated 25 rooms per day would ‘go south. And that’s just in the winter. What we are doing (with the Plaza closure) is educating people that you can’t stay on the North Shore, and that is too bad because we have a hell of a market here.”’ North Shore hotels such as the 100-room Coach House, the 32- room Lynnwood and the 5(-room Avalon, which cater to a more middle-of-the-road hotel market, could benefit marginally from the DROWNED man’s mother Rita Farley...shocked. Plaza’s closure, according to Lyn- nwood and Avalon owner Ken Hutchinson. ““We’ve noticed an increase in our food and beverage sales,’ Hutchinson said, ‘‘but not a huge increase in rooms.”’ He added that the North Shore, while one of the nicest places to stay in the Lower Mainland, has always been a difficult hotel room sell to corporate travellers who view the two North Shore bridges as major obstacles to reaching downtown business contacts. Greater Vancouver Tourist Board executive director John Munro said the impact of the Plaza’s closure will be felt throughout the Lower Mainiand. He said with the opening of the new Vancouver Trade and Con- vention Centre, the Lower Mainland now attracts conventions of up to 20,000 people and the area needs a comparable number of hotel rooms if it is to service such conventions. ‘ The municipalities that make up the Greater Vancouver Regional District, he said, currently have 14,000 motel and hotel rooms available. From its opening, the Interna- tional Plaza helped put the North Shore on the hotel and entertain- ment map with its quest for four- star hotel status and its launch of the Plazazz Show Lounge in the mid-’70s. Plazazz brought such big name performers as Mel Torme, Sarah Vaughan, Lou Rawls and Stephane Grappelli to the North Shore for the first time. LONSDALE Quay Hotel general manager Kirk’ Johnson... “educating people that you can’t stay on the North Shore.” Renovation to the hotel prior to the announced closure included in- troduction of’ a unique B.C. cuisine, 24-hour room service and a hotel limousine service. “It really boosted the (North Shore’s) profile,’ Ainsworth said. '