A NEW dance and drama school in York has become embroiled in a row with a top London studio over its name.

Lesley Jones, 54, of Copmanthorpe, has resurrected dance classes which she ran in the late 1980s and early 1990s under the name Pineapple Disco, this time calling it Pineapple Performing Arts Theatre School.

She spent £600 on setting up a website and had t-shirts printed with the Pineapple logo.

But then she was contacted by a representative for the renowned Pineapple Dance Studio in London, which currently features on a documentary on Sky One, and warned that the name pineapple belonged to it.

She said: “When I told them I had been doing this since the 1980s he just said: ‘I don’t think so’”.

“At first we were chatting and that was fine but when I told him we were starting up on Saturday, he told me I should think very hard about that.

“He said the word pineapple, when linked in any way to music, legally belonged to them. I am in a state of shock.”

Mrs Jones described her classes, which were attended by children and teenagers, as a “hobby club.

She said she now faced having to change the name of the group at short notice.

A spokesman for Pineapple Dance Studios in London said: “We aren’t in the business of trying to force someone else out of business but I hope that somewhere down the line she will change the name.

“We have a registered trademark for Pineapple Performing Arts School, which is registered in Covent Garden. What I said was: ‘this has just come to our attention and did she realise that we had a trademark registration in place?’

The spokesman said anyone who set up a group called pineapple could be cashing in on his company’s name.