What is Philly without the pretzels?

Ok, this is pretty crazy but as a native Philadelphian, I had to have my say on this.
Last night, I ran into a guy from Philly at Publix and somehow we got into talking about street pretzel vendors. THEY NO LONGER EXIST! I was like WHY???? He said because they thought they were dirty. When I told Keith he was like whats next no hot dog vendors in NY? I'm all for cleanliness (trust me, my OCD is terrible, Keith can testify to that because of the amounts of times I wash my hands a day), but no pretzels???????? What is the world coming to? LOL!!!!