So I used this jQuery search & replacejQuery search & replace to fix it client side, I still want to find & fix the issue the proper way & will update this when I do. Here is my resulting jQuery snippet:
(function ($) {
$(document).ready(function(){
$("form#views-exposed-form-maps-page select#edit-destination option").each(function(){
var text = $(this).text();
text = text.replace("&", "&");
$(this).text(text);
});
});
}(jQuery));