Waco, TX Business Licensing & Operations: Tobacco Retail License (2026)

Waco's zoning ordinance defines a "smoke shop" at Section 28-1 as any premises where more than 20 percent of gross square footage or gross sales is dedicated to the display, sale, distribution, delivery, offering, furnishing, or marketing of tobacco, tobacco products, or tobacco paraphernalia, a definition broad enough to capture vape and e-cigarette retailers built around that inventory. The operative locational rule sits in the "Distance requirements" section for each commercial district. In the C-3 general commercial district, Section 28-653(d) bars a smoke shop from locating within 500 feet of any lot used for a school, day care center, park, or another smoke shop.

The same 500-foot buffer from schools, day care centers, and other smoke shops applies in the C-4 central commercial district under Section 28-678(c), and again in the C-5 service commercial district, so the restriction travels with the "smoke shop" use classification rather than sitting in one citywide section. Because "smoke shop" is a listed permitted use in the C-3, C-4, and C-5 districts rather than a special-permit use, an operator who clears the buffer can open without a board of adjustment hearing, but development services checks the 500-foot measurement, along with site plan and certificate-of-occupancy requirements, before issuing a permit.

If a smoke shop use later becomes nonconforming and operations lapse for a year, or the operator's state tobacco permit or license is revoked for a year, Section 28-95(c)(1) treats the use as abandoned, meaning it cannot resume without conforming to current zoning.