Your string has no spaces between the lines so when you write:
sql = "SELECT DISTINCT [~ALLCBLEQ].Equipment, [~FIRE_AREAS].INDEX" _
& "FROM ([~FIRE_AREAS] …
That becomes a SQL string like
SELECT DISTINCT [~ALLCBLEQ].Equipment, [~FIRE_AREAS].INDEXFROM ([~FIRE_AREAS] …
Which is obviously invalid SQL because there's no space between INDEX
and FROM
.
An easy solution is just to put a space before each closing quote (or after each open quote):
sql = "SELECT DISTINCT [~ALLCBLEQ].Equipment, [~FIRE_AREAS].INDEX " _
& "FROM ([~FIRE_AREAS] …
However, If you find yourself writing relatively complex queries like this, I would recommend that you consider converting them to stored procedures or views instead.