Berwyn, IL Business Licensing & Operations: Tobacco Retail License (2026)

Chapter 825 of the Berwyn Code of Ordinances requires a tobacco dealer's license for anyone who sells or offers for sale at retail, gives away, delivers, or keeps with the intention of selling, giving away or delivering, tobacco products within the city. The license is in addition to any other license required, so a shop still needs its business regulation certificate. Application is made in writing to the City Collector and processed under Chapter 801.

The definition in § 825.02 is broad. A tobacco product is any product in leaf, flake, plug, liquid or any other form containing nicotine derived from tobacco and intended to enable human consumption, whether chewed, smoked, absorbed, dissolved, inhaled, snorted, sniffed or ingested by any other means. The sale of single cigarettes is specifically excluded from that definition, and products approved by the FDA as cessation or medical products, marketed and sold solely for that purpose, are outside it. The chapter does not use the words vape or e-cigarette, so a vape shop is covered through the liquid and inhaled language.

The fee schedule in § 801.13 sets the price: $200 a year for cigarette, cigar and tobacco dealers plus the business regulation certificate fee under Chapter 802, or $150 a year for retailers where tobacco is not the primary business. Wholesalers pay $250 plus one-half of the certificate fee. Licensees carry other duties. Section 825.05 bars sales to anyone under 21 and requires a red-on-white sign with letters at least one inch high at every tobacco display, § 825.06 bars employing anyone under 18 to sell tobacco, and § 825.09 requires locking devices on vending machines. After a revocation, no other license can be granted for six months for tobacco sales at the same premises (§ 825.11).