Customers Ignore Self-Service Farm Stand's Honor Code

The methodology behind Orchard Hill Farm's self-service stand on Jacksonville Road, in Towaco, is simple.

Customers pick out the produce they like and slip money to pay for the items through a pocket in the door. The system, which has been in place for 10 years, is based on honesty.

But honesty is lacking lately and now the owners of the farm stand are considering closing up shop, especially after a non-paying customer recently drove away with more than $70 worth of produce. Orchard Hill Owner Jennifer VanNess said that particular customer drove off in a luxury car too.

"To have people just blatantly steal from you is like a slap in the face," she said.

VanNess is the daughter of Russell VanNess who has been operating the Orchard Hill Farm for more than 150 years. The farm stand used to be bigger, she said, and have people working it. But as her 65-year-old father began to get busy, working a full-time job, driving across the state to find the best produce to offer at the stand and just farming himself, the family decided to move the stand to a self-service operation. In the beginning, it was not such a bad idea.

"Believe it or not, it worked out great, it worked out wonderfully," VanNess said.

But in recent years, as the economy has taken a toll on many, the VanNess' noticed more people stealing from the stand. VanNess said there have often been people who pay for 12 ears of corn and take 13 or who come up a few dollars short. She said she is often hopeful that those customers will come back another day and put a little bit of extra money through the door to compensate, though it rarely happens.

"Maybe they'll come back and make it up another day," VanNess said.

There are also people who take advantage of the system by stealing larger amounts, which is why the stand is equipped with surveillance video cameras aimed to capture the license plates of the shoplifters. However, trying to capture shoplifters on video can be problematic, VanNess said. If a car does not pull in straight, it is difficult to make out the license plate number. Without it, the VanNess' have little proof of who was visiting the stand, as the video surveillance footage is not always clear.

"The small farmers are having a hard enough time trying to make ends meet without people stealing from them. It's sad that we've come to this in our society," Dianne Gamsby, a 65-year-old Boonton resident and customer of Orchard Hill for the past 40 years, said.

The has assissted in some cases, VanNess said, but can only help when a license plate number is recorded and reported. VanNess said her family has been prosecuting about two shoplifters per year for the past several years.

But VanNess said her family does not prosecute the shoplifters for so that they can recover their money. They do it to teach a lesson.

"The ones that we prosecuted, they never come back," she said. "It's teaching people that when you do something, especially in Montville, you're going to get punished."

Despite the actions of the shoplifters, none of the previous years' shoplifting hurt the family farm stand as much as the $70 hit on July 26. The license plate number of the luxury car allegedly involved in the incident was not caught on camera and, as such, the VanNess' do not have enough information to report the incident to police.

"It just devastated my father that the people actually had the audacity," VanNess said. "Times are so hard for everybody and, clearly, if you can drive a BMW, you can pay for your produce."

Part of the reason Russell VanNess was so upset by the actions of the alleged shoplifter, who Jennifer VanNess said had a young girl with her in the video surveillance tape, is . The hot summer air and lack of rain have made for a challenging time for the crops.

Gamsby said what is happening at Orchard Hill "goes against everything Montville is about" and that local residents should be working to preserve Montville's farming past with novelties such as the self-service stand instead of hurting its future. VanNess said confidently that she "would highly doubt it" if the stand remains open another year.

"If things continue to go this way, absolutely not," she said.

Gamsby urged anyone who sees shoplifting at the stand to speak up on behalf of the VanNess'.

"It has to be addressed and I think people have to know what's going on and if they see it happening, report it. You can't just ignore it," she said.