A letter from the fair to vendors dated March 18 stated that the state Fire Marshal had ordered "significant infrastructure investments" to bring the buildings up to code and given the fair two years to comply.
"We have recommended to the Board that the best option, after the 2012 fair, is to dismantle the log buildings and require all vendors who wish to continue operation to obtain mobile units," the letter said.
In jeopardy are six buildings constructed in 1967. They house 19 different concessions including some of the oldest and most popular foods at the fair: The Patty Wagon, Cathy's Candy Cabin, Taco Dan's and Curly Bob's Deep Fried Vegetables.
The proposal to tear down the iconic cabins dismayed Joe Lentz, proprietor of Husky Burger and, with 50 consecutive years of flipping patties at the booth, among the longest-lived food concessionaires at the fair.
A lifelong Alaskan from the Valley, Lentz attended his first Palmer Fair as a boy in 1941.
"Everything was homemade," he said. "Everything was local, Alaskan. Boy, how that's changed."
Lentz has a mobile unit for vending outside the fair, so he wouldn't personally be out of business if he had to do his grilling in the vehicle. But the old log booths are distinctly Alaskan, he said, one of the few architectural features on the fairgrounds that look like something the pioneers of yore might have used.
He pointed across the passageway behind his booth to another vendor serving out of a tent structure attached to a battered Ford Econoline van fitted with a kitchen.
"Is that what we really want to see at the Alaska State Fair?" he said.
While he could probably absorb the cost of an upgrade, Lentz said he was worried about booths that have been staffed by local charities for even more years than he's been making Husky Burgers. "It bothers my heart that those organizations probably couldn't afford it," he said.
Those worries may be premature said Larry Imm, whose Wild Bill's Buffalo Burger stand occupies the southernmost booth in the cabins. During the past 24 years he's handed grub over the counter to governors, country music stars and other celebrities who've visited the fair. He hopes he can keep doing that.
"I've been told that nothing's set in concrete," he said. "A committee is looking at options. But we haven't heard anything yet."
Dean Phipps, the fair's marketing director, acknowledged that the matter remains up in the air.
"The early talk was that there was nothing we could do that would save them," he said. "At first, I thought they were going away."
The fair formed a committee to consider what might be done and, critically, who would pay for it. The committee noted that the booths are only in use for 12 days out of the year.
They asked the Fire Marshal if anything might be done and presented some options to address safety concerns.
"They said they'd get back to us, but so far they haven't," Phipps said.
A Daily News request for clarification emailed to the State Department of Public Safety Division of Fire and Life Safety on Friday morning also received no response.
Meanwhile, the fair is exploring different avenues for preserving the log booths, Phipps said. One option might involve long-term leases that would allow the vendors to help pay for the upgrades over time.
The code compliance might be accomplished in concert with a redesign of the area between the Red and Green Trails, now a somewhat cluttered passageway running through the middle of the grounds.
But it's all theoretical at the moment, he said. "We can't do anything until we get a response."
Reach Mike Dunham at mdunham@adn.com or 257-4332.
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