Written for owners of independent stores and small chains in the US: convenience and grocery, liquor and smoke shops, fashion, gifts, hardware, and garden and farm stores.
The short version
- ID anyone under 30 buying tobacco or vapes.Federal Tobacco 21 bars sales of tobacco, vapes and nicotine pouches to anyone under 21. Alcohol is 21 in every state (As of Oct 2026).
- Sell only FDA-authorized vapes.Unauthorized flavored disposables face seizure, and states can add their own bans. Stop selling them and return them to the distributor if the contract allows.
- Call a lawyer before hemp and after stings.Have a state-licensed attorney assess each hemp product before ordering or selling more. After a failed sting, call your alcohol license lawyer before any interview.
For a c-store, liquor store or smoke shop, the licenses are the business. Alcohol is licensed by the state, location by location, and a license usually cannot move with a store without approval. California, Texas, New York and Florida each require a tobacco retail license or permit for every location, and most require one for vapes too. Selling on a lapsed license is a separate violation.
The ages and limits at the register
- Alcohol: 21 in every state.
- Tobacco, including e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches: 21, under federal Tobacco 21. Check photo ID for anyone under 30.
- Lottery: 18 in California, Texas, New York and Florida.
- Pseudoephedrine cold medicine: keep it behind the counter or in a locked cabinet. Except for a single package of 60 milligrams or less, the buyer shows photo ID and makes a logbook entry you keep for at least 2 years, and you sell no more than 3.6 grams to one buyer in a calendar day. For example, two boxes of 2.4 grams each is 4.8 grams: sell one, log it with the buyer's ID, and refuse the second. Train the staff who sell it, and self-certify each location to DEA, renewing every year. As of Oct 2026.
Tobacco 21
No sale of any tobacco product, including e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches, to anyone under 21, and photo ID for anyone under 30. FDA compliance checks lead to civil money penalties and, after repeat violations, no-tobacco-sale orders. As of Oct 2026.
FD&C Act s.906(d)(5); 21 CFR 1140.14(a)(2)
Which vapes you can sell
Federal authorization and state bans
Only vapes with FDA marketing authorization may lawfully be sold, and unauthorized flavored disposables face FDA and CBP seizure. California prohibits covered flavored tobacco products, and a covered product not on the Attorney General's Unflavored Tobacco List is deemed flavored. New York bans flavored vapes. Florida's Attorney General lists devices deemed attractive to minors, and a retailer has 60 days after a listing to sell or remove one. Since September 1, 2025, Texas bans vapes with youth-appealing packaging or disguised shapes, vapes wholly or partly made (or marketed as made) in China or another federally designated foreign-adversary country, and vapes containing, or marketed as containing, cannabinoids or other listed substances. As of Oct 2026.
21 U.S.C. 387j; Cal. Health and Safety Code 104559.5; N.Y. Public Health Law 1399-mm-1; Fla. Stat. 569.312; Tex. Health and Safety Code 161.0876
FDA and CBP can seize them, and the state may cite the permit as well.
Hemp and delta-8: do not guess
A staged federal change
The revised federal hemp definition takes effect on November 12, 2026, but until December 11, 2026 it applies only to hemp-derived cannabinoid products containing cannabinoids that cannot be naturally produced. After that, unless Congress changes the law again, broader limits apply, including a 0.4 milligram per-container cap for final products on total THC plus similar cannabinoids. States add their own age limits and bans. As of Oct 2026.
Public Law 119-37, division B, section 781; Public Law 119-103, division B, section 2019
Do not assume a blanket ban on a single date, or that selling down existing inventory is lawful. Have a state-licensed attorney assess each product's cannabinoids, manufacture and state rules before you order or sell more.
SNAP
Owners are liable for their clerks
Selling ineligible items such as alcohol, tobacco or hot foods for SNAP brings disqualification for a period or a civil money penalty, and trafficking brings permanent disqualification. Owners are liable for their staff. As of Oct 2026.
7 CFR 278.6
Block tobacco keys and other ineligible items from the EBT tender in the POS, retrain staff and document it.
After a failed sting
- Preserve the evidence.Keep the video and the POS data.
- Call an alcohol license attorney.Before anyone from the store gives an interview.
- Pull your records.Training records and the ID-scanner log.
- Prepare for the hearing.With counsel, consider an offer in compromise or stipulated suspension terms before the hearing.
What protects the store
In California, a sale to a minor brings an accusation and suspension, with revocation risk on a third violation in 36 months; LEAD training records are the standard defense evidence. In Texas, a store whose employees hold seller-server certification and that did not encourage the violation is shielded from administrative action for an employee's sale to a minor. Florida's responsible vendor program mitigates penalties. As of Oct 2026.
Cal. Bus. and Prof. Code 25658, 25658.1; Tex. Alco. Bev. Code 106.14; Fla. Stat. 561.705
Licenses renew on each state's own cycle. Put every alcohol, tobacco, vape and lottery license expiry on the calendar 60 days ahead. Selling tobacco or vapes on a lapsed license is a separate violation.
Asked in Greymill
Only vapes with FDA marketing authorization may lawfully be sold. Selling through does not make the rest legal.
The risk: FDA and CBP, the customs agency, can seize unauthorized flavored disposables. The state may cite your permit too.
What to do: return them to the distributor if your contract allows. Buy only authorized products from now on.
Texas adds its own bans. Since September 1, 2025, it bans vapes with any of these (As of Oct 2026):
Look: youth-appealing packaging or a disguised shape
Origin: wholly or partly made, or marketed as made, in China or another federally designated foreign-adversary country
Contents: cannabinoids or other listed substances, or marketed as containing them
Check every product line against this list as well as FDA authorization. Paste your vape lines and I will mark the ones that need a closer look.
Ask it about your own business
Paste this into Greymill with your own figures, and Rules & Licensing works it through for your business.
I run a shop in [state], in the US. We sell [beer and wine, spirits, tobacco, vapes, hemp products, pseudoephedrine, lottery] and [do or do not] accept SNAP. List every license and permit this location needs with its renewal date, draft an ID and refusal log and a clerk training sign-off, and tell me which of these vape and hemp lines I need to check before I reorder: [list products].
More for shops and physical retail in the US
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- Signing a store lease without overpaying on CAM and percentage rentNNN, CAM caps and audits, percentage rent breakpoints, co-tenancy and guaranties: the clauses that decide what a store really pays, and what to do when a notice arrives.Read the lesson
- Schedules, teenage stockers and staff who chase shopliftersRetail scheduling laws, the federal limits on 14 and 15-year-olds, commission pay, and why staff must never try to stop a thief.Read the lesson
- A customer says my card fee or gift card is illegalCard surcharges, dual pricing, gift card expiration dates and refund signs: where stores get caught, state by state.Read the lesson
Open the interactive lesson · Every shops and physical retail lesson · What Greymill knows about the trade
Sources
The primary sources behind this lesson, checked Oct 2026.
- Bus. and Prof. Code 25658, 25658.1 (Alcohol: state ABC licensing)
- Alco. Bev. Code 106.14 (Alcohol: state ABC licensing)
- ABC Law s.54 (grocery beer licence) (Alcohol: state ABC licensing)
- Fla. Stat. 561.705 (Alcohol: state ABC licensing)
- FD&C Act s.906(d)(5); 21 CFR 1140.14(a)(2) (Tobacco, vapes and hemp)
- 21 U.S.C. 387j (Tobacco, vapes and hemp)
- 604 U.S. ___ (2025) (Tobacco, vapes and hemp)
- HSC 104559.5 (Tobacco, vapes and hemp)
- Public Health Law 1399-mm-1 (Tobacco, vapes and hemp)
- Health and Safety Code 104559.1 (as added by AB 3218) (Tobacco, vapes and hemp)
- 7 CFR 278.1, 278.6 (SNAP, WIC, pseudoephedrine and lottery)
- Updated Stocking Standards Overview (read on the agency mirror fns-prod.azureedge.us; fns.usda.gov returned 403) (SNAP, WIC, pseudoephedrine and lottery)
- state table, page updated October 13, 2026 (agency mirror fns-prod.azureedge.us) (SNAP, WIC, pseudoephedrine and lottery)
- 7 CFR 246.12 (SNAP, WIC, pseudoephedrine and lottery)
- 21 U.S.C. 830(e) (SNAP, WIC, pseudoephedrine and lottery)
- due dates (The us calendar: payroll, sales tax, SNAP, licenses and trading peaks)
- IRC 7503 (The us calendar: payroll, sales tax, SNAP, licenses and trading peaks)
- 21 CFR 1140.14(a)(2) (Deliverables in house style)