He has received several such letters since — all threatening legal action.
“I’ve been ripping them up,” Sarkis told The Brooklyn Paper, taking a few minutes to remind readers of the Southern Comfort Band’s next gig, on March 5. “I’m not sure if I’ll be fined, but I doubt it. We’re just a small group with a southern edge — south Brooklyn, that is — and it’s really no big deal.”
Indeed, with the September deadline long gone, it’s unclear whether the liqueur maker will go beyond the letter-writing phase and make a federal case of it.
But the manufacturers were serious — at least last year.
“The public associates the Southern Comfort brand and its products with music,” lawyer Jill Jacobs wrote. “Your use of ‘Southern Comfort’ in your band’s name … is likely to cause the public to mistakenly believe that you are associated with Southern Comfort Properties … when they are not.”
Previously, courts have upheld the rights of trademark owners in cases where other business names could confuse customers.
The former F-line Bagels on Smith Street was forced to change its name — cleverly, by reversing the F on its signage — after a Metropolitan Transportation Authority cease-and-desist letter, fraught with concerns that subway patrons would confuse the shop’s name with an MTA sponsorship.
Southern Comfort Band at the Leif Bar [6725 Fifth Ave. in Bay Ridge, (718) 680-0909] on March 5 at 9:30 pm (barring legal action, of course).
