NO MORE 'LUCKY' FOR GROCERY OUTLET

ELLIOT ZWIEBACH

BERKELEY, Calif. - Grocery Outlet here has covered the Lucky name on a single store in Rocklin, Calif., after the same U.S. District Court judge who ruled it had the right to use the name reversed his decision.

Grocery Outlet has requested Judge Jeffrey S. White issue a "stop" motion at a hearing scheduled for Friday while the company files an appeal with the California Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Bob Tiernan, president and chief operating officer, said the appeals process could take six months to a year.

In the interim, the Rocklin store will operate under the Grocery Outlet banner, although it will maintain the everyday-low-price program it offered under the Lucky banner, Tiernan said.

The battle between Grocery Outlet and Albertsons, which originally acquired the Lucky banner in 1998, was joined in March when White refused to grant Albertsons a temporary restraining order asking Grocery Outlet to stop using the Lucky name. In his ruling, he agreed with Grocery Outlet that Albertsons had abandoned the Lucky trademark by not using it for at least three years.

In ruling in Albertsons' favor, the judge indicated there was not a preponderance of evidence to support Grocery Outlet's claim to the name, Tiernan told SN last week. "However, we think he misapplied the law, and we've decided to file an appeal," he added.

A spokeswoman for Supervalu, the Minneapolis-based company that acquired the best-performing divisions of Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons earlier this year, said in a statement, "Albertsons has spent years developing the brand and goodwill surrounding the famous Lucky trademark, and we will make every effort to protect it."