SYRACUSE, N.Y. (CelebrityAccess) It may be a listening room but it can’t be the Listening Room.
An intimate coffee shop-slash-live music venue in Syracuse, N.Y., will need to change its name by April 12 because of a legal dispute with a similarly named venue in Nashville, Tenn. The Listening Room at 443 Cafe and Lounge, which opened two months ago, has already hosted acts like Tim Burns and Hamell on Trial but owners Julie Briggs Leone and husband-partner James Leone have been informed that they were infringing on the Nashville venue’s trademark.
“It’s just something I don’t have time for,” Briggs Leone told the Syracuse New Times. “I’ve already been working 18-hour days for the past few months and this is a big project.”
The couple thought they were in the clear, having found similarly named venues in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, and North Carolina plus several companies using the same name including one that sells audio equipment and another that deals with hearing therapy.
The Nashville venue was established in 2006 and trademarked the name in 2014. Trademark attorneys have contacted the couple to tell them that the Nashville venue doesn’t have a case but they don’t want to risk it.
“I can’t fathom trying to stick to our guns,” Briggs Leone said. “The legal bills would be immense.”
In a blog post, the couple said: “We will have to add a DBA to our LLC, liquor license, bank and vendor accounts, move our website, change our social media outposts and update printed materials,” she posted. All of those will require time and money to make the switch.
“I’m most concerned about the liquor license,” she says. “If we have to buy a new one, we just can’t do that right now.”
Although they were given until April 12 for a name change, the Leones think it will take longer to change all the signage, other than the Facebook page and the website.
