VANCOUVER - A standoff between an armed gunman and Vancouver police at a downtown hotel ended peacefully after 10 hours of negotiations.

The confrontation started at 2:15 a.m. Monday and ended at 12:15 p.m. when the emergency response team used a "flash bang" device, which is a non-lethal sound grenade, to distract the man and overtook him.

Police also fired a plastic bullet at the 28-year-old man, striking him in the leg. The suspect was taken to hospital with minor injuries and faces weapons-related charges, said police spokesman Const. Brian Montague.

"We wanted to make sure it was resolved peacefully," Montague said. "It was our goal from the beginning."

The Independent Investigations Office has been notified but is not investigating.

The motives of the suspect, a Surrey resident, are not clear but Montague said he is known to police and has a history of mental health issues. He asked only for water during the 10-hour standoff.

The drama began when the gunman walked into the lobby of the five-star Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel brandishing a handgun and then holing up on the third floor where the meeting rooms are located.

A fire alarm in the hotel around 2:30 a.m. allowed a few guests to escape.

Others were told to stay in their rooms for hours until evacuations could start around 10 a.m.

By 1 p.m., the hotel had reopened. But the ordeal created traffic delays with Hastings shut down between Thurlow and Howe streets all morning, and major disruptions for 60 hotel employees, 200 hotel guests and residents.

One man raced to meet his fiancée in a limousine after hotel staff agreed to escort her and her bridal party out of their room around 12 p.m. before the standoff ended.

"I'm very happy my bride-to-be is safe. That's number 1," said Reyfemel Damasco, 38, from his cellphone in the limo. "But I'm really shocked by the whole incident and I really want her out of there."

The wedding photographer, the mother of the bride and others coming to visit Jayna Marie, 28, and her bridesmaids were blocked by police and were waiting outside, he said.

Marie, her maid of honour and two bridesmaids had been "parading around in their leopard print pyjamas," in the lobby late Sunday night and early Monday and went to bed at 2:15 a.m., shortly before the gunman entered the hotel.

Damasco said he received an early-morning text message from Marie "saying 'something nutty is happening,'" he said. "My jaw just dropped."

He said their 1 p.m. wedding would likely be delayed by a few hours but would not be postponed.

Meanwhile, guest Allison Ball, who tweeted Monday morning that she was stuck in her hotel room, was escorted out at 10:23 a.m.

During the morning she had tweeted "getting hungry in the Fairmont as we wait for the gunman to be talked down."

Later she tweeted "we've already raided to mini-bar — not paying for a thing."

zmcknight@vancouversun.com

gbellett@vancouversun.com