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Wed, July 4, 2007  
 
Armed robbers hit bar  
One suspect still at large  
By ROSS ROMANIUK, SUN MEDIA  
 
Police put a Maples district into lockdown for hours yesterday while scouring the area for suspects wanted in an armed robbery at a McPhillips Street hotel.  
 
Officers flooded the area surrounding Canad Inns Garden City following the 11 a.m. incident, blocking off streets and back lanes while putting canine units to work in an attempt to track down two men who used at least one gun to rob the hotel's Playmakers gaming lounge.  
 
No one was injured during the holdup, in which it appears no shots were fired.  
 
Shortly before noon, officers arrested a suspect following a foot chase in an alley north of the hotel.  
 
"They caught him at a fence," said Diana, a Beauty Avenue resident who refused to give her last name.  
 
 
TIGHT-LIPPED  
 
"I was just scared," she added. "They were all yelling."  
 
Officers used loudspeakers to tell several residents to return to their homes while their cruisers were stationed on Beauty, Watson Street, Stardust Avenue, lanes between those roads and in the parking lot of the hotel at the intersection of McPhillips and Jefferson Avenue.  
 
Cops called off the search for the second suspect during the mid-afternoon. He remained at large last night.  
 
Police Sgt. Kelly Dennison confirmed one suspect was in custody and officers were seeking another.  
 
Dennison was tight-lipped on the type of firearm used. He refused to confirm reports from nearby residents and onlookers that a gun and backpack or bag containing cash had been found by officers in a back lane.  
 
Dennison said little, as well, about the heavy police presence.  
 
"This happens every time we have a major robbery like this," he explained.  
 
"The more information that gets out there, the harder it is for us to catch the suspect. So I'm trying not to release very much information right now," Dennison said.  
 
The hotel's staff were clearly unnerved by the incident.  
 
A cop near the inn's entrance said "the whole situation has ruffled a few feathers" at the hotel, part of Manitoba's large Canad Inns Corp. chain.  
 
Company president Leo Ledohowski was in Grand Forks, N.D., on business and unavailable for comment.  
 
"I can't confirm anything," said his assistant, Cindy Carswell. "Everybody is OK. That's for sure. But because it's a police investigation, we can't comment."  
 
A nearby resident, who gave his name only as Brett, said he saw a male Canad Inns employee look inside a dumpster near the hotel.