An Ottawa store has a new mascot after their four-and-a-half-foot Playmobil fireman was brazenly stolen from their shop last week.

At 3:45 p.m. on Mar. 30, a young man in his 20s walked up to the plastic figure, grabbed it and "ran like the wind," said Debbie Harley, manager of Tag Along Toys on Terry Fox Drive.

The man carried it to a car parked in front of a nearby Dairy Queen, Harley said. As he tried to stuff the giant toy into his car, the fireman's head and arm fell off, she said, but an unwitting bystander picked the appendages up and handed them to the man.

Store owner Patti Taggart posted a picture of the fireman figure, worth about $550, on her Twitter account. She has also filed a police report.

The figure has acted as a kind of unofficial mascot for Tag Along Toys on Terry Fox Drive for eight years, Harley said.

"It was a big draw," she said. "Kids would come to the store to get their picture taken with it."

On Thursday, Taggart tweeted a picture of the replacement figure — a knight in armour, but no sign of a weapon to ward off would-be thieves.