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This article was published 11/3/2012 (3123 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Justin Bieber has been kidnapped -- sort of.

A life-sized cardboard cut-out of the teenaged heartthrob was allegedly pilfered by four young women Saturday morning from the Booster Juice location at the corner of Grant Avenue and Pembina Highway.

SUBMITTED PHOTO Booster Juice staff members Laura Howes (left) and Mikayla Wagner pose next to Justin Bieber cut-out.

The store's staff said the quartet entered the store around 10 a.m., ordered four smoothies, paid for them -- one with a debit card -- and when the employees were busy making smoothies for a mother and her young kids, allegedly snatched the cut-out from its spot near the till and took off.

"One of the kids said to the staff, 'Those girls just took your Justin Bieber cut-out.' The staff headed out into the parking lot to see if they could spot them getting away but they were nowhere to be seen and now he's gone," said Graham Taylor, franchisee for that store and one other Booster Juice outlet in town.

Taylor doesn't own any Bieber albums and didn't go to his concert at the MTS Centre in the fall of 2010. He did become a fan, however, after Bieber visited his store last October along with his girlfriend, singer Selena Gomez.

There was such a buzz around town about the visit that Taylor bought a life-sized cut-out of Bieber at a party store for $50, slapped a Booster Juice T-shirt on him, taped a cup to his hand and set him up next to the till. Since then, all kinds of people -- and he means all kinds -- have put their arms around him and posed for pictures.

"It's not just young girls and their moms. I've seen construction workers come in wearing their protective vests and take pictures with their cellphones," he said.

Taylor noted that Bieber was also a polarizing figure in the store as some customers would have gladly stuffed the cut-out in a blender instead of stuffing bananas and pineapples. He's not sure which camp the four girls were in, but he wants his cut-out back.

"He has sentimental value. We've grown pretty attached to this cut-out, he's been with us a number of months," he said.

Taylor said he has security camera footage of the incident, in addition to the debit card information, and will pursue charges. If, however, the perpetrators want to return Bieber -- in the same condition, of course -- he'll forget the whole thing ever happened.

He is even putting up a $25 Booster Juice gift card as a reward.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca