Alpharetta, GA Business Licensing & Operations: Tobacco Retail License (2026)

The City of Alpharetta's Unified Development Code, Section 1.4.2, defines a 'Smoke Shop and Tobacco Store' as any business premises dedicated to the display, sale, distribution or marketing of tobacco, tobacco products, smoking instruments or vape products. The definition doubles as a location standard: the business must sit inside a retail center and cannot open within 2,000 feet of a school, religious institution, government building, park, residential dwelling or another smoke shop, with distance measured as a straight line between premises. Grocery stores, supermarkets and convenience stores that sell cigars, cigarettes or vape products as an ancillary line, ten percent or less of total sales, fall outside the definition and the buffer entirely.

Any applicant proposing a stand-alone smoke shop must show compliance with the 2,000-foot separation before Community Development will approve a site plan or certificate of occupancy. The Director of Community Development enforces the standard under Section 5.9.1, with authority to issue written violation notices, citations, cease-and-desist orders and to revoke previously issued permits, and the City may seek an injunction in Fulton County Superior Court against a business operating in violation. A dispute over whether a location meets the 2,000-foot measurement or the ancillary-sales exemption is decided first by the Director and can be appealed to the Board of Appeals under Section 4.5.6, whose ruling is final unless taken to Superior Court within 30 days.