Bensalem, PA Business Licensing & Operations: Tobacco Retail License (2026)

Section 232-601 of the Bensalem Township Code defines a tobacco shop or smoke shop as any retail establishment whose primary or principal product is tobacco, smokeless tobacco, tobacco products, vape pens, vape refills, smoking products, or similar goods, sweeping vape and e-cigarette retailers into the same locational rules as traditional tobacco stores. Subsection (b)(1) permits such a shop only in general industrial districts, and only where the Zoning Hearing Board grants a special exception; it cannot open by right in any other district, including the Township's commercial corridors along Street Road and Route 1.

The same subsection bars establishing a shop within 1,000 linear feet of another tobacco shop or smoke shop, measured in a straight line from the nearest boundary of one property to the nearest boundary of the other, without regard to intervening buildings. Subsection (b)(2) bars stacking a tobacco or smoke shop with any other kind of tobacco or smoke shop inside the same building or facility. Subsection (c) grandfathers any shop lawfully operating before the section took effect but freezes it as a nonconforming use that cannot expand; where two shops already sit within 1,000 feet of each other, the one established and continuously operating first keeps its conforming status.

Subsection (d) bars flashing lights or exterior lettering, drawings, or pictures beyond what the section allows, and requires the exterior to be painted a single achromatic color unless the shop predates the ordinance. Subsection (e) caps signage at one primary sign and one secondary sign.