Tracy, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Tobacco Retail License (2026)

3194 sets zoning-based siting rules for every tobacco retailer, defined broadly to include e-cigarette and vape sellers. Retailing may only occur at fixed locations, no mobile or pop-up tobacco sales. Every tobacco retailer must sit at least 600 feet from a sensitive youth use, defined as a school (public, private or charter, K through 12), a licensed day care center, or a youth center such as a club, video arcade with ten or more machines, or a park with play equipment. Where the retailer and the sensitive use are on separate parcels, the 600 feet is measured from the sensitive-use parcel's outer boundary to the closest structure housing the retailer; on the same parcel, it is measured structure to structure.

A second, stricter rule applies to smoke shops and cigar stores: any retailer dedicating more than 10 percent of its retail square footage to tobacco, tobacco products, or tobacco paraphernalia must also sit at least 600 feet from any residentially zoned parcel. Retailers already lawfully operating when the ordinance was adopted are treated as legal nonconforming uses under Article 25 and may continue at their existing location; the same protection applies if a sensitive youth use later opens within 600 feet of an already-operating retailer.

The section's stated purpose is limiting youth access to tobacco through land-use controls, adopted by Ordinance No. 1303 on November 17, 2020, and it does not itself grant authority to sell tobacco, that remains governed by state licensing law.