Error reading an Excel file with a leading "#" in a cell

Any recommendations on how to read an Excel XLSX file (using CFSpreadsheet) that has a leading "#" in a cell?

I checked and this bug was reported over 2 years ago:

https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3043393

(Please test and, if you encounter the problem, upvote to get this bug reopened.)

The issue has been marked as "closed/withdrawn/cannot reproduce", but I am encountering the bug on the latest versions of both ColdFusion 9 & 10. It doesn't matter which format the column/cell is in. I've tried both "general" and "text".

Here's simple spreadsheet sample data that will cause ColdFusion to throw an error:

In some cases, the column is non-essential and it'd be ok to identify the column & remove it from the spreadsheet, but this can't apparently be done without first successfully reading the spreadsheet.

Are there any work arounds for this?  Thanks.