Shoreline, WA Business Licensing & Operations: Tobacco Retail License (2026)

Shoreline does not license tobacco or vape retailers separately, but it does control where they can locate through the Development Code's multifamily use standards. SMC § 20.40.465 applies to properties zoned NB, CB, MB, TC-1, TC-2, TC-3 and MUR-70', requiring mixed multifamily-commercial buildings to build nonresidential space on the ground floor facing a public right-of-way, consistent with the commercial design standards in SMC § 20.50.250(C). Subsection B allows that required nonresidential space to hold any use otherwise permitted in the zone, with named exceptions: parking areas, adult use facilities, marijuana retail operations, check-cashing and payday lending services, pawnshops, and tobacco/vape stores.

SMC § 20.20.048 defines a "tobacco/vape store" broadly as any premises dedicated to the display, sale, distribution or marketing of tobacco, tobacco products or paraphernalia, including electronic nicotine delivery systems, while carving out grocery stores, supermarkets, convenience stores and similar retailers that only sell tobacco products as an ancillary line of business; those general retailers are not swept into the exclusion. A dedicated tobacco or vape shop can still operate elsewhere in a qualifying zone; it simply cannot occupy the street-facing ground-floor commercial space a mixed-use building is required to provide under subsection B.

Any business operating in Shoreline, tobacco/vape or otherwise, must also separately hold a general business license under Chapter 5.05 SMC. Planning and Community Development reviews building permits and use compliance for mixed-use projects, and placing an excluded use in the required nonresidential space is enforceable as a Code Violation under the notice-and-order procedures of SMC § 20.30.760.