It’s in the tea leaves: Atlantans among America’s most honest

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It’s in the tea leaves: Atlantans among America’s most honest
July 20, 2011
George Mathis
AJC

Atlanta, a city that has in recent years clearly lost its ability to successfully cheat, is among our proud nation’s most honest cities, according to a company that sells tea.
A wad of cash similar to this one was not stolen in Atlanta.

A wad of cash similar to this one was not stolen in Atlanta.

Honest Tea conducted a “social experiment” wherein it asked denizens of 12 large municipalities to voluntarily donate $1 for a bottle of tea or lemonade.

Unexpectedly, the “transparent but securely mounted” cash box in Atlanta was not ripped off the wall and immediately hustled to a strip club. The Atlanta experiment was conducted Tuesday in Centennial Park, which is full of honest tourists.

Hidden camera video, viewable at honestcities.com, indicates people are mostly honest.

“We wanted to challenge people to think about how honest Americans are as a whole, particularly when no one is watching,” said Seth Goldman, president and TeaEO of Honest Tea. “It was refreshing to see that most cities were in the 90 percent range.”

Atlantans were 96 percent honest. Chicago, the home of law-abiding politicians, finished first.

Residents of Boston, who used to toss passels of tea into the sea, tied for second with Seattle, home of overpriced coffee.

New York, home of Wall Street, finished last.

Washington, D.C., home of the U.S. government, finished near the bottom in Honest Tea’s honesty test.

Honest Tea, partly owned by Coca- Cola, is donating $10,000, half of which was collected in the aforementioned secure boxes, to three non-profit organizations.