This is how I do it:

UPDATE <tablename>
SET <column> = SUBSTRING(<column>, PATINDEX('%[^0]%', <column>), CHAR_LENGTH(<column>))
WHERE <column> LIKE '0%'

Obviously, the most interesting part for me is the:

'%[^0]%'

construct that finds the position of the first non-ZERO character in the <column> to start substring from.

For detailed info about used functions, please visit Sybase’s documentation:

– patindex

– char_length