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A legal battle is under way over the right to hold a pierogi festival in Edwardsville.
The volunteer Edwardsville Hometown Committee filed a suit Monday in federal court in Scranton in response to threats from a suburban Chicago organization that owns a trademark for the term “Pierogi Fest.”
According to a release and copy of the suit from Kingston attorney James Haggerty, who prepared the filing pro bono with other local lawyers:
The Edwardsville committee has hosted the two-day community event in June since 2014. The festival includes a parade, live entertainment, vendors, youth activities and a competition rating the best pierogi and other ethnic foods.
The increasingly popular event has helped to promote the borough, draw visitors, assist local merchants and raise money for community and civic purposes.
The committee has been threatened with a federal lawsuit by the Whiting-Robertsdale Chamber of Commerce Inc. in Whiting, Indiana, an area about 30 minutes from downtown Chicago.
The chamber has demanded the Edwardsville committee stop using the term pierogi festival or pay money to the chamber to continue using the term. The chamber also attempted to harm the local festival by sending letters to event sponsors threatening to sue them for trademark infringement.
Rather than ending the Edwardsville Pierogi Festival or paying “extortionate” licensing fees to the chamber, the Edwardsville committee decided it would fight.
Local attorneys Gregory Fellerman and Corey Suda, of Fellerman and Ciarimboli Law P.C., worked with Haggerty to prepare the filing, which seeks a declaration that the Edwardsville Pierogi Festival is not a trademark infringement. The suit also seeks damages for problems the chamber has caused with sponsors.
Haggerty said the local committee is on solid legal ground.
“There can only be trademark infringement where there is a likelihood of consumer confusion — and no person on planet earth would confuse the Edwardsville Pierogi Festival with the suburban Chicago Pierogi Fest.”
He accused the Indiana-based chamber of trying to “bully and “extort.”
Committee President Jackie Kubish Moran said in a release the group was “shocked” the Chicago-area group would threaten to sue.
Festival revenue has helped the committee purchase flower bulbs for the municipal parking lot and American flags for display throughout the community.
Suda said he is proud to donate his time to help with the suit.
“The Hometown Committee has done nothing wrong, and it is now being shamelessly threatened with what is essentially a shakedown,” he wrote.
Chamber representatives could not immediately be reached for comment Monday night. Its website says its Pierogi Festival draws more than 200,000 visitors to Whiting’s retail district and has received coverage on several major television programs.
The local suit says the Edwardsville festival was organized to celebrate the ethnic, particularly Polish, roots and culture of the community. The U.S. Census Bureau has determined that Luzerne County is the only county in the country where Polish is the most prevalent ethnic group, it said.
