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

Table 5.3, Use Regulations, defines a Significant Tobacco Retailer as any store devoting 10% or more of its floor or display area, or 20% or more of its merchandise, to tobacco products, vape products, Delta-8 THC, kratom, ingestible CBD, or electronic nicotine delivery systems, plus any business marketing itself as a tobacco store, smoke shop, vape shop, or cigar shop, and any hookah bar regardless of what it sells. Once a business meets that test, the Zoning Officer treats it as a Regulated (R) use requiring a zoning permit under Section 155-5.1D before it can open.

Four standards apply: a 1,000-foot separation from any other Significant Tobacco Retailer measured along a straight line between the closest walls of each building; a 1,000-foot separation from any public or private school on the same wall-to-wall basis; mandatory ventilation adequate to keep smoke and vapor from migrating into adjoining suites or outdoor public areas, with a mechanical exhaust hood required if the business heats coals indoors, which covers hookah lounges; and ongoing compliance with the Commonwealth's Clean Indoor Air Act and other federal and state law.

Because the use is Regulated rather than merely permitted, the Building and Planning Department checks the distance math against existing schools and retailers before issuing the zoning permit, and a location that cannot clear both 1,000-foot buffers is denied outright rather than sent to the Zoning Hearing Board for a variance. The category applies across the Township's commercial districts wherever Table 5.3 lists the use as R, so a prospective vape or smoke shop in Ardmore, Bala Cynwyd, or Bryn Mawr faces the identical distance test.