Was John Key lying?

Prime Minister John Key was on Letterman. #10 on his Top 10 reasons to visit New Zealand was that the Auckland Airport now has a Cinnabon.



I'd be tempted to fly to Auckland from Christchurch just for that if it were true.

For context, I once entered Australia for the sole purpose of getting Krispy Kreme. Layover in the international transit lounge in Sydney on the way from Christchurch to Canada and I knew there was a Krispy Kreme on the other side of customs. So on my immigration form I listed my reason for entering Australia as "doughnuts" and my expected time in Australia as "20 minutes". The customs guy scowled at me something fierce, but he stamped my passport and let me through. On my return through customs, I again listed the purpose of my visit as "doughnuts" and that I was leaving the country with a mixed dozen Krispy Kremes and had bought nothing else on my visit. Customs official on the way out was far more understanding and said she'd have done the same. Christchurch's KO doughnuts are decent, but nowhere near as good as a Krispy Kreme. I ate 9 of them in the half hour before my connecting flight. Marvelous. I did the same on my return flight, except that I brought the doughnuts home to share with Sue rather than eating them all before arrival. Fortunately, the NZ biosecurity folks didn't count a jelly-filled doughnut as verboten or I'd have had to have gulped those ones down before clearing customs.

A quick search of the Auckland airport website suggests Key was lying about Cinnabon. Ok, it's almost certainly the Letterman writers who wrote the line. But it was awfully mean of him to get my hopes up. Cinnabon is at least as good as Krispy Kreme. And neither of them is available in New Zealand as best I'm aware.

Cinnabon: get to work and open up an outlet. Preferably in Christchurch. Krispy Kreme: you too. And somebody open up an Ethiopean restaurant somewhere in New Zealand. And a Peruvian chicken shack. And NZ Immigration should open up immigration for the relevant ethnic communities to make sure that there's a decent customer base for each of those restaurants so they don't wind up blanding down.

And hurry up. I'm hungry.

Update: since posting, SiteMeter says that 15 of the last 30 visits to Offsetting Behaviour have come from Google Searches on Cinnabon + Auckland or Cinnabon + New Zealand. Obvious evidence of strong latent demand. Somebody could make a mint by either bringing Cinnabon to NZ or by using one of the many online versions of Cinnabon's recipe to open similar shops. Get to it folks.

Update 2: Now 32 of the last hundred...