Former New York nightclub operator Peter Gatien filed a federal civil lawsuit Thursday against operators of the Dream Hotel, accusing them of stealing the name of his former Big Apple hot spot Limelight.
The boutique hotel chain plans to use the Limelight name for a nightclub at its yet-to-open Southern California property, Dream Hollywood, according to Gatien’s complaint in LA federal court.
Lawyers for the colorful, eyepatch-wearing Gatien said “defendants’ new club venture at the Dream Hollywood hotel” is a “transparent attempt to build a new business based on misappropriations of Gatien’s Limelight brand recognition and deception of consumers.”
“Peter is angry and disappointed. The Limelight name is Peter Gatien’s and he is determined to fight to keep it that way,” said Ben Brafman, Gatien’s long-time New York-based lawyer who won acquittals for the nightclub operator against a host of federal drug charges in 1998.
The suit targets Dream Hotel and Jason Strauss and Noah Tepperberg, partners in the nightclub development company Tao Group.
It’s a uniquely personal battle for Gatien, who claims he’s known both Strauss and Tepperberg since they were teens. Strauss even went to senior prom with Gatien’s daughter Amanda, according to the lawsuit.
“What Jason and Noah are doing is morally reprehensible,” Gatien told The Post. “I have had the Limelight name since these men were in diapers. Their attempt to use my club’s success and name recognition will never be permitted to stand.”
Gatien, who lives in Toronto and travels frequently to New York, registered “Limelight” with the US Patent and Trademark Office in 1991 and renewed it in 2001.
However, he didn’t renew it in 2011, leading to its removal from trademark protection on Dec. 1, 2015.
Despite that lapse, his lawyers insisted “Gatien has always intended to use” the Limelight name and still enjoys trademark protection.
Gatien has been in talks to reopen a Limelight club in New York and other cities and even sold clothing apparel with the Limelight name on it, according to his lawsuit.
“The source of the right comes from its use,” Gatien’s lawyer Bill Carmody said. “It doesn’t matter if the mark is (currently) registered.”
A rep for the Dream Hotel did not immediately return messages seeking comment on Thursday.
Limelight was one of New York’s best-known nightclubs from the time it opened in 1983, in an old church on Sixth Avenue near 20th Street. It was shut down by the city in 1996 over drug use there.
Gatien kept it alive, on and off, until 2001, when it was finally shuttered.
That property is now home to a David Barton Gym.