THE END OF HONESTY?
Are we living in a post-honesty box world? Jane Matthews investigates.
Unscrupulous ratbags haven’t ruined it for everyone, say a couple whose roadside honesty box takings were stolen.
Kiwis are still a trustworthy bunch, stall owners Donald and Robyn Johnson said.
The Johnson’s run a produce stall on Airport Dr, New Plymouth, well-known in the area as DJ’s Avos - the stall where you’ll find an avocado recipe in each $5 bag you buy.
‘‘We’re still in a society where most people are honest,’’ Donald said.
The pair live down the road from the Taranaki family of seven who had their honesty box and a cucumber stolen last Sunday.
A traditional honesty box is a container, like a two litre ice cream tub, with a slit in the lid for money to be slid in to pay for produce at at an unmonitored produce stall on the roadside. The lid could also be pulled off to retrieve change.
More frequently in today’s modern world an honesty box can be a code-locked, wall-secured safe with small slot on top for money to slip through at a stall on the roadside, with sensor lights and sometimes cameras too.
The Johnson’s is similar to this, but don’t let the high-security on their honesty box fool you, they’re very trusting.
‘‘Do I think New Zealanders are still honest enough for honesty boxes? I believe we are,’’ Donald said.
The pair have days where the amount of fruit they have sold does not match the amount of money in the honesty box, but it usually levels out.
Some customers leave an ‘IOU’ note and their phone number in the box, then return the next day with extra cash to pay for the produce they took the day before.
‘‘It’s been pretty successful for us, having the honesty box,’’ Robyn said.
Since they started selling their produce three years ago they’ve had one honesty box broken into and one attempted break in that they know of.
‘‘We were robbed in the early days,’’ Donald said.
The Johnson’s honesty box used to be shut by a padlock, until one day someone cut it off and took the cash from inside.
The pair came home to find the broken padlock on top of the honesty box, yet there was still cash inside. The Johnsons think loyal customers continued to buy produce and pay, even with the padlock sitting atop the box.
‘‘We still had more money,’’ Donald smiled.
University of Otago professor of psychology Jamin Halberstadt was unsure he could explain the mentality of an honesty box thief.
It would take ‘‘a dishonest one’’, he said. However, he thought honesty boxes were a sign of New Zealander’s character.
‘‘I’d hate to see honesty boxes go,’’ Halberstadt said. ‘‘They’re like a statement of trust in a community.’’
Sergeant Bruce Irvine wasn’t sure how many honesty box thefts there had been in New Plymouth in the past year. However, he said considering the amount of honesty box stalls there are in the area, he couldn’t recall many thefts in comparison. ‘‘But there’s always unscrupulous ratbags.’’
As for the family of seven whose honesty box and cucumber got stolen, they are not put off having a roadside stall, but plan to be more careful. Dennis Wade, his wife Stacey Jensen-Wade and their five children watched as a woman stole from their stall on Sunday evening just before they were about to bring it in.
Despite the fact the honesty box had about $8 in it, and the cucumbers are worth $1 each, Wade plans to set up a wifi camera system. ‘‘We’ll put a sign up saying ‘smile’,’’ Wade laughed.