Valley awash in SpongeBob thefts

Stephen Curran

Friday, Dec. 3, 2004 | 11:21 a.m.

It's hardly the crime of the century.

In fact, calling it the crime of the week is a stretch.

The offense? SpongeBob SquarePants -- the absorbent and yellow and porous star of a cartoon, motion picture and countless other trinkets bearing his name -- has been stolen from its perch atop dozens of Burger King restaurants nationwide.

And the chain, jumping on the kind of word-of-mouth buzz millions of dollars in print and television advertisements rarely buys, has done everything short of issuing an Amber Alert for the $600 decorations.

The Home of the Whopper has even issued a reward -- a one-year's supply of free burgers or salads -- for safe return of the SpongeBob promotional gimmicks, according to the company.

In Clark County, at least four of the 9-foot-tall inflatable promotional items, complete with skinny inflatable legs designed to dangle over the side of the fast-food restaurants, were reported missing Nov. 19, when the items first appeared in Nevada, said Marilyn Ryan, a spokeswoman for HNK II, a California company that owns 26 Burger King franchises in Clark County.

"People are doing it as a gimmick or collectors are trying to get them," Ryan said.

The replicas of the popular cartoon character seen adorning the roofs of thousands of Burger Kings nationwide have become a must-have -- if illegal -- holiday item for pranksters.

And the disappearances have made news across the nation. About the only place SpongeBob hasn't been seen is on the back of a milk carton.

Burger Kings in at least 10 states had reported their SpongeBobs missing. The inflatable decorations first appeared Nov. 11 as a promotion for the recently released "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie."

Of HNK II's locations in Las Vegas, Henderson, Mesquite, Jean and Laughlin, all but six had decorated their stores with the 9-foot-tall, 4-foot-wide SpongeBob replicas. Three of the four thefts happened in Las Vegas and the other in a Mesquite restaurant, she said.

A representative from Glencoe, the company that owns Clark County's other 17 Burger Kings, referred questions to Ryan, who said Glencoe had not reported any stolen SpongeBobs.

No citations or arrests have been made in connection to the thefts, Detective Warren Hensman of Metro's property crimes section said, although the stolen decorations had become a frequent topic of conversation at the department.

"Nothing has come across my desk yet," he said. "But it's something you'd hear about, even if it's jokingly."

Hensman would not speculate on who he thought stole the likeness of the cartoon character popular with children and more than a few adults, but he said the police department would treat the thefts as any other property crime.

"It's no different from anything else," Hensman said. "A theft is a theft is a theft."

If caught, the thieves would likely be charged with possession of stolen property, a misdemeanor. However, the vandals could also face felony grand larceny charges depending on what adjusters determine SpongeBob's value to be and if the person in possession of the decoration was the thief, Hensman said.

Store manager Rosa Westerlund had worked the day before the decoration was stolen from the roof of her restaurant at the 2200 block of East Sahara Avenue. That store's SpongeBob was displayed less than 24 hours before it was stolen, she said.

"I was here when they put it up," Westerlund said. "When I went home Sunday morning, my manager called me to tell me it was gone. It wasn't even there a day."

Ryan said SpongeBob's popularity has trumped any previous promotions dating back to 1993's "The Lion King."

SpongeBob is the second inflatable promotion the company has run, having earlier this summer placed decorations promoting the movie "Shrek 2" on its roof. Westerlund said someone punctured the replica on her store trying to steal the Shrek inflatable replicas but did not escape with the promotional item.

Ryan said she did not know what the thefts would mean for similar future promotions, although she doubted the company would stop using the inflatable decorations.

"Being that this is a corporate thing, it seems to have worked," Ryan said. "It got people's attention."

Meanwhile Internet buyers are snapping up the SpongeBob novelties like they're going out of production. A search on the auction site eBay turned up three of the inflatable SpongeBobs. One for sale in Indiana had reached $155 Wednesday afternoon. Another seller in Santa Ana, Calif., had two for sale with bids starting at $100 each.

Both sellers insisted their wares had not been stolen, but the California seller described them as the same kind "made only for a certain fast-food restaurant."

The popularity eludes Metro's Hensman.

"I don't even like SpongeBob," he said. "I don't let my kid watch it."

Franchise owners participating in the promotion bought the individual decorations from the company's corporate headquarters for about $600, a company spokesman said.

Franchises have long faced theft of promotional items, as customers who are anxious for movie memorabilia but are unwilling to buy it try to steal posters, wall hangings and small toys, Ryan said.

So it was only logical that SpongeBob would be targeted next, she said.

"Am I surprised?" Ryan said. "Well they're pretty darn cute. It's a hot television show and a hot movie. It's pretty popular with the kids and with guys in their 30s. I'm not surprised."