Huy Fong Foods and the city of Irwindale are butting heads again.

Two years after Irwindale officials dropped a lawsuit against the Sriracha hot sauce maker and suspended a resolution that declared its plant a public nuisance, the city is suing the company for more than $400,000 in unpaid fees.

The city filed the lawsuit against Huy Fong in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday.

The action claims that when the city entered into a disposition and development agreement with Huy Fong in September 2010, Huy Fong agreed to pay the city $250,000 each year for 10 years as a payment in lieu of taxes (PILT). Under that arrangement, the hot sauce maker didn’t have to pay business license or development impact fees related to the project, including “fair share” costs for future traffic improvements.

The lawsuit claims Huy Fong is now behind on its payments to the tune of $427,086.76.

Company CEO and founder David Tran addressed the issue in a statement released Friday.

“From the very beginning, I offered to contribute $250,000 per year for 10 years for the benefit of the Irwindale community through the city of Irwindale,” Tran said. “But because we had this odor issue where all five of the City Council members unanimously declared us a public nuisance, without real basis, I feel that Huy Fong Foods is being treated unfairly, so I stop the contributions.”

The lawsuit says Huy Fong made its first three payments to the city on time from 2012 to 2014, but failed to pay its fourth payment by Jan. 17, 2015, as required. In May of last year, Eva Carreon, the city’s finance director, sent Huy Fong a notice of default.

The two sides met a couple of months later and agreed to defer the fourth payment until Nov. 23, 2015, without imposing interest charges. The deferral was made with the understanding that Huy Fong would then make its fourth and fifth payment, the suit said. The city also informed the company that its sixth payment would be due on Jan. 17, 2017, and that all remaining payments would need to be made annually until the 10th payment was made on or before Jan. 17, 2021.

Huy Fong failed to follow through with the agreement, the suit alleges, and the company delivered a letter to the city in August saying it would make no further “contributions” to the city until a meeting could be arranged between Huy Fong and residents who had complained or had issues with the company.

The city responded the following month, saying the PILT payments were not contributions, but rather payments required as part of Huy Fong’s operating agreement. The city also indicated it would be open to coordinating a meeting with Huy Fong and the general public, although it believed the odor complaints from two years ago were no longer an issue.

Huy Fong first came under fire in 2013 when residents near the factory complained of strong odors that caused their eyes to burn and gave them coughing fits and nosebleeds.

The city filed a lawsuit over the complaints, but later dropped the suit after Huy Fong vowed to resolve the issues. The South Coast Air Quality Management District was unable to find evidence of an air quality violation that would be harmful.

City Attorney Fred Galante said the city had hoped to avoid a lawsuit this time around.

“We tried many times to talk to them and we sent them written communication asking them to pay, but they have made it very clear that they will not pay,” he said. “They hold negative feelings about the lawsuit we were forced to file a couple years ago.”

Galante said the city can’t ignore the payments because it has to treat all companies that do business in the city fairly and equally.

Staff writer Courtney Tompkins contributed to this story.