Lexington, KY Business Licensing & Operations: Tobacco Retail License (2026)

Secs. 14-97 and 14-98 regulate indoor smoking citywide, and within that framework they define and carve out a narrow lane for vape retailers. Sec. 14-97 defines a 'retail electronic cigarette store' as a retail store devoted primarily to selling electronic smoking devices, e-cigarettes, e-cigars, e-pipes, e-hookahs, vapor pens, or any other product name, and accessories, where sales of other products are 'incidental,' meaning they generate less than 25 percent of the store's total annual gross sales. That numeric threshold is the whole test: if a shop's non-vaping merchandise crosses 25 percent of annual receipts, it no longer qualifies as a retail electronic cigarette store under the ordinance.

Sec. 14-98 then grants qualifying stores an exception to the general prohibition on smoking inside any building open to the public or workplace, but only 'to the extent no tobacco product shall be smoked inside the store', the exception covers e-cigarette use, not combustible tobacco. The companion carve-out for a 'retail tobacco store' works the same way in reverse, with its own 25 percent incidental-sales cap and a bar on smoking electronic devices inside. Enforcement of the whole indoor-smoking chapter, including these definitions, runs through the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Health Department, which issues citations under Sec. 14-101 and must give notice of the smoking rules to every applicant for a business license.