HONESTY boxes are part of Island life and should not be allowed to die out despite recent thefts, according to rural businesses and charities.
Some have already installed CCTV, fitted locked wall-mounted boxes and even changed to electronic payments to deter thieves.
The honesty box next to the vegetable stall outside the disability employment charity Acorn was recently taken.
The box at the entrance to the stables at the inclusive riding school Home Farm Equestrian in St John was stolen a few days later. Both owners took to social media to share their disappointment.
Joint owner of the farm and riding school Karen Barette said: ‘It’s such a shame. It was a little box with a handle on top and they just took it away. They even took the basket next to it with change for tea and coffee.’
She added: ‘Jersey has always been known as a safe place but this makes you think about security. We have so many people coming and going to practise at our school, with over 1,000 people coming through here during the horse show on the weekend, so we have to think about how to replace it with something more secure.’
Mrs Barette said that about £500 donated via the honesty box disappeared overnight and that the money collected in it would have been used to provide riding lessons for people with disabilities. She is currently deciding how to replace it with a more secure wall-mounted locked box covered by CCTV.
She added: ‘It was really upsetting that someone would do it. It was really disheartening that someone would come to the farm where we live to take it.
‘The only way it will stay an honest community is if we get more help in tackling the problem to stop it getting worse, but we still have hope that the Jersey way will continue.’
HR manager at Acorn Amanda Berry agreed, saying: ‘They are part of Jersey, honesty boxes, I don’t want them to go. I think it is a shame if you can’t trust people.
‘I know the cost of living is going up but I think this was just an opportunist who saw the box and it was too easy to take it away.’
She added that they were currently exploring whether to let people pay electronically to remove the ‘temptation’ of an honesty box altogether.
‘We’ve got a temporary bucket there now that we bring in overnight until we decide what to do in future. It’s a temptation to somebody so I’m not sure what we will do next.’
