Replacing special characters and double spaces - sql

Question

We have a string, 'AMERICAN:BEER~ INVENTIONS CHOCOLATE-FEVER'.
We are trying to remove special characters and replace that with a space and later checking if we have created any double spaces, and we try to replace the double spaces with a single space.
So, if we remove the special characters, and we remove the double spaces, we are left with 'AMERICAN BEER INVENTIONS CHOCOLATE FEVER'.
The problem here is, we have unintentionally removed, the default double space between 'INVENTIONS CHOCOLATE'.
How can we avoid this?
My current approach:
Remove special characters:
UPDATE xxxx.xxxxx
SET xxxx = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(xxxx, '<', ' '), '>', ' '), '(', ' '), ')', ' '), ':', ' '), '#', ' '), '~', ' ')
WHERE xxxx LIKE '%[<>:()#~]%';
Pass the column in a function to remove double spaces:
SET #str = TRIM(#str);
WHILE CHARINDEX(' ', #str) > 0
SET #str = REPLACE(#str, ' ', ' ');

Answer 1

Does the following work for you?
Using translate to convert to a single character, then remove additional spaces and finally replace the unwanted character:
declare #s varchar(50) = 'AMERICAN:BEER ~ INVENTIONS CHOCOLATE-FEVER'
select Replace(Replace(Replace(Translate(#s, '<>:()~-','#######'), '# ', '#'), ' #', '#'), '#', ' ');
Result
AMERICAN BEER INVENTIONS CHOCOLATE FEVER