Shoreline, WA Home Business: Customer Traffic Restrictions (2026)

Shoreline's home occupation rules treat customer traffic itself as an impact to control, separately from the floor-area and activity limits elsewhere in SMC § 20.40.400. Subsection E lets a home business sell goods only by appointment, mail order, or telephone/electronic order paired with off-site delivery; subsection F requires that any service performed for patrons either be scheduled by appointment or be carried out away from the house rather than on site. Together the two subsections foreclose an open storefront model: walk-up retail, unscheduled house calls, and drop-in customers are not permitted forms of a Shoreline home occupation regardless of how small the business otherwise is.

These customer-contact rules sit alongside the section's other caps: a 25 percent floor-area limit (subsection A), two nonresident employees on site (subsection C), indoor-only operations (subsection B), a single un-permitted sign under four square feet (subsection I), and the requirement to hold a City business license under Chapter 5.05 SMC (subsection J). Planning and Community Development administers home occupation compliance as part of the Development Code, and an operation that draws unscheduled customer traffic in violation of subsections E or F is a Code Violation subject to the notice-and-order enforcement procedure in SMC § 20.30.760, carrying a $500 civil penalty for violating an order that escalates to 150 percent for the next 14 days and doubles each period after.

The rule exists because Shoreline's home occupation policy, stated in the section's intent clause, is to let residents run businesses from home while protecting surrounding residential areas from traffic, parking and noise impacts that come with a retail or service storefront.