Honest Tea Founder's Bike Stolen on Day of Honesty Study

A recent fun "Honesty Study" by Bethesda-based Honest Tea suggests that Marylanders are 89 percent honest, Patch reported.

To conduct an honesty study at a national level, the company placed self-serve kiosks of its iced tea across the country this past month—including one at the downtown Bethesda Barnes & Noble bookstore—and asked tea-takers to pay $1—on the honor code—for each tea bottle. Ninety-one percent of tea bottles taken from the Bethesda kiosk were paid for, Patch reported. 

The other kiosk set up in Maryland—in Baltimore—had a lower honesty rate, bringing Maryland's honesty percentage to 89 percent, according to the study.

But what about that other 11 percent? 

It's not quite as rosy a picture. As it turned out, Honest Tea founder and Bethesda resident Seth Goldman reported that his bicycle was stolen from outside the Bethesda Metro station—where it was locked up—on July 11, the day that the honesty study was carried out in DC, according to company spokesperson Scott Smallwood. (Only 80 percent of tea bottles taken from the DC kiosk were paid for, according to study results.)

The lock on the bicycle was cut, and the bicycle had not been returned as of July 24, Smallwood said.

In related news, in Takoma Park, five bike thefts took place between June 3 and July 9, according to a Takoma Park Police Department statement.

Has your bicycle ever been stolen? Did you get it back? Tell us in the comments.