Unmanned roadside farm stands are sometimes targeted by thieves. But farmers say most people are honest. (Farmers Forum file photo)

Honour system under siege:

The reality of farm stand thefts

SIMCOE COUNTY — Roadside farm stands, a symbol of traditional rural trust, continue to fall victim to opportunistic thieves in the deteriorating Canada of today. But surveillance camera footage is at least helping to identify and catch the culprits, while farmers rethink their reliance on the honour system altogether.

The latest alleged culprit is a man captured on video attempting to vandalize the surveillance camera itself at a Simcoe County farmstand specializing in baked goods. Footage from the “Tiny Farm Stand,” north of Penetanguishene, shows a scruffy man with dark hair in a hoodie as he sprays paint directly onto the lens of the camera around 9:40 p.m. on May 22, according to a Facebook post by stand owner Lauren Mayer. The black paint didn’t stick, however, and Mayer was able to share a clear image of the suspect who was quickly identified with the help of Mayer’s followers on social media. His name hasn’t been released but police say they know who he is and are looking for him.

Mayer said in a Facebook post that she believes him to be the same person who stole money from the stand’s cashbox using a fishing pole contraption a few months ago. “I’d really like this guy to get caught,” she wrote. “This is getting really frustrating. It’s hard when you’re doing all this work, spending all this time and energy, just to have somebody take things from you, instead of getting a job.”

Meanwhile, a woman with neon-orange hair is suspected of stealing twice from a Grey County farm stand on May 7. Police say she drove a Kia Soul and took items from the Highway 6 stand in separate visits at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Her image was captured by surveillance camera and publicly released by Grey Bruce OPP, who were hot on the trail as of mid-May.

In a separate incident also assisted by video camera footage, Wellington County OPP charged a Cambridge woman with two counts of theft under $5,000 after baked goods were stolen multiple times from a Sideroad 10 Puslinch Township farm stand.

Unmanned roadside stands have a checkered history. They have been damaged and even set afire. Sometimes they attract serial thieves. In 2022, 44-year-old Andrew Frost of Deseronto was arrested and charged with eight counts of theft under $5,000 after a string of cash robberies from multiple stands in Prince Edward County.

While the OPP lacks sufficient data to identify any trends related to farm stand thefts, Wellington County OPP media coordinator Carly McKeown said such incidents are “suspected to be under-reported” and encourages installing security cameras both as a deterrent and an investigative help to police.

Police are looking for this suspect who spray painted the security camera at the Penetanguishene farmstand, at far left, that was robbed.

However, technology has its limits. For Pembroke area cash-cropper and market gardener Darcy Smith, the only real solution was to stop leaving his stand unattended. “We put a person down there about 10 years ago,” Smith said, noting that he now employs his own children and their friends to staff the location.

Though he didn’t want to end the honour system, Smith was reluctantly persuaded after the money box was “ripped off” his farm stand trailer. Smith made his cash boxes bigger and ever more fortified but thieves got more creative. At one point, he found out that somebody was using 16-inch long needle-nose pliers to pull bills up through the cash-box slot. The financial stakes are higher than many might realize as an unmanned farm stand can accumulate sizable amounts of cash in just one day, Smith said.

His losses weren’t limited to currency. One summer, thieves came by every hour to filch “5 or 6 dozen” corn cobs. They were selling the ill-gotten produce at their own stand down the road.

Bruce Hudson, who has been farming for nearly 50 years, has seen his share of bizarre and destructive behavior. While he notes that “most people are pretty honest,” he has had his cash boxes destroyed and stands vandalized when unmanned. “Someone drove a dump truck over it one time and … somebody else set it on fire,” recalled the Kinburn cash-crop, hog and potato farmer.

But there have been no problems as long as the stand is staffed, Hudson added.

While cash is a target, he acknowledged that produce also disappears without tight inventory control. But he was more stoic about theft of produce. In some cases, people have left handwritten IOUs, he said, adding, “I think the majority of the public are generally pretty honest … and if somebody is that desperate to take it (without paying) I’m almost inclined to let them do it because maybe they need it more than we do.”