Halloween weekend brings with it the usual tales of ghosts, ghouls and things that go bump in the night.

But as my Herald colleagues highlighted last week, some very real concerns have been haunting Scotland's hospitality industry for quite some time.

Across a four-day series, the Reset the Rates campaign examined the impact of a business rates system that owners say is “unfair, unpredictable and increasingly unaffordable”, putting forward six proposals designed to make it fairer, simpler and more sustainable.

The bleak assessments running through the coverage make for essential reading, and many of the issues raised have become all too familiar to me in my role as a food and drink writer, bubbling below the surface in almost every interview with restaurant, bar and cafe owners in recent years.

Whether discussing mounting costs that inevitably........

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