When Tom Butler talked the prime minister’s wife, Margaret Trudeau, into turning up at the opening night of the Daddy Long Legs Disco at the International Plaza Hotel in North Vancouver on July 31, 1979, her appearance scored national attention for the nightclub.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
North Vancouver Disco:
The only thing I could find out about the Daddy Long Legs disco was from a Globe and Mail article dated August 4, 1979 which focused on PR superstar Tom Butler rather than the venue he was promoting. “It was a public relations man’s dream,” went the lead. “Margaret Trudeau, the biggest newsmaker to storm the east from the North Shore’s sheltered heights, was boogying at the opening splash at Daddy Long Legs, a new North Vancouver Disco.”
The hotel was built around 1975 and was at the corner of Marine Drive and Capilano Road. The 1980 city directory describes it as “Vancouver’s finest resort hotel.” The high-rise had 150 rooms all with colour television, complete convention facilities, restaurant dining, show lounge, garden bar, dancing, a heated indoor swimming pool, saunas, whirlpools, and tennis courts. John Hale was the general manager.
It doesn’t look like the disco or the hotel lasted very long because it quickly turned into the International Plaza Hotel and Apartment Complex in the city directories. The hotel’s facilities have since been repurposed into various fitness clubs. The former disco is now the Staples.
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