I have a column that houses varchar. Some of the data in this column read as a hashtag (no spaces on either side of it, I've checked).

When I do a select \* without conditions I can see the hashtag data (in screenshot).

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UBPi6.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UBPi6.png)

When I do a select to count the rows with hashtags, I get a return of 0. Why is the query not able to find 

Here are my two queries

```
-- returns 0
select count(LastVisitNumber) 
from qcpr_ARF_OC.Visit
where LastVisitNumber = '#';

-- returns several rows and some are just #.
select * from qcpr_ARF_OC.Visit;

```