>>I don't see any extra spaces running that select. Anyway, you can try

SELECT STR(YEAR(AddDate),4) FROM News

>
>Check closer. Doing this, you will see the extra spaces:
>
>

>SELECT LTRIM(RTRIM(STR(YEAR(AddDate)))) FROM News
>? EXP_1+'A'
>

I don't see extra spaces in QA but they are present when query run through SPT. The query I suggested returns year w/o extra spaces in both cases.