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From the
Daily News:
Mister Softee is anything but soft when it comes to safeguarding his cherished name.
The New Jersey-based owner of the ubiquitous ice cream trucks is suing a rogue Queens vendor, charging he opened his depot in Long Island City to peddle a knockoff version.
A mix of about two dozen nearly identical Master Softee and Mister Softee trucks are lined up inside and outside Dimitrios Tsirkos’s 11th St. garage.
The fledgling business has soured tempers throughout Mister Softee headquarters in South Jersey and its franchisees across Queens and the Bronx.
Owner Jim Conway cried trademark infringement in a March lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court and demanded Tsirkos drop the Softee con.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain is expected to rule this month whether Master Softee trucks should be yanked off city streets. Conway is also seeking a six-figure payout to cover unpaid licensing and marketing fees Tsirkos still owes.
From the
Queens Chronicle:
For nearly 39 years Martin Price has traveled the borough’s streets — announcing himself on each block with a friendly jingle and a truck full of treats.
He does it for the kids, the 57-year-old Kool Man ice cream man said. And generations of Maspeth, Middle Village and Glendale children grew up eagerly awaiting his arrival on hot summer days — until last year.
According to Price, that’s when a Mister Softee driver threatened him with violence after their routes began to overlap in Maspeth.
Not one to take unnecessary risks, he gave in to the threats and pulled the plug on his Maspeth route.
But despite the shift in service and an investigation into his claims published by the Queens Chronicle last year, Price said that the threats haven’t just continued — they’ve expanded. He claims that two more Mister Softee drivers are now harassing him in both Middle Village and Glendale.
Price was most recently approached by a Mister Softee driver in Glendale last Monday, where he was harassed once again.
He took his case to the police when the threats began, filing a complaint last summer. But police said they couldn’t act — an officer wasn’t present to witness the harassment. He later went to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, alleging permit violations by the Mister Softee drivers. But the agency told him to go to the police.
