Aiken County, SC Business Licensing & Operations: Tobacco Retail License (2026)

Adopted by Ord. No. 25-12-33 on December 16, 2025, Sec. 27 does not create a tobacco business license, but it functions as the county's real gatekeeper on where a smoke or vape shop can locate, on top of any other applicable law. The first spacing rule bars a shop from locating within 2,000 feet of a public or private K-12 school, a post-secondary institution, a child day care facility, a youth center, a recreational facility, a public park, a church or religious institution, or a community center, and that buffer applies even if the sensitive use isn't open yet, so long as it is under active development or undergoing demolition or clearing in preparation for construction.

The second rule imposes the same 2,000-foot buffer between one smoke or vape shop and another, and it counts a shop that has been vacated or discontinued if that use is still eligible to be re-established as a legal nonconforming use under article VIII, Sec. 7 of the nonconformities rules; an operator can't assume a closed competitor's site is open just because the doors are shut. Both buffers are measured from the property lines of the parcels involved, not from the building footprints or entrances, which typically makes the effective distance requirement even harder to clear on smaller commercial parcels.

Because this is a zoning-based location standard rather than a licensing scheme, compliance is checked at the development-permit and business-license stage by the planning and development department before a shop can open at a given address.