Unable to preserve indentation in cfgrid

I have a cfgrid bound to a query in a cfc. The query indents one of the columns with blank spaces dependent on a hierarchy, like:

...

SELECT regularColumn, indentedColumn = replicate(CHAR(32),((Hlevel-1)*2))+' '+indentedColumn

...

Query works fine, i can see the indents in SQL server manager, but they never make it back to cfgrid. If i pick any other "visible" character works fine.

Any ideas?

Thanks