Cigarette and tobacco products: licensing and enforcement.

Assembly Member Rogers, with a slate of principal and additional coauthors and a Senate counterpart, advances a measure to overhaul California’s tobacco retailer licensing framework by recasting the retailer license, increasing per-location fees, and introducing new reporting obligations to guide enforcement. The core change would convert the existing retailer license into a retailer license and set new fee amounts: for applications filed on or after July 1, 2026, the fee would be 450 dollars per retail location, and renewal fees would rise to 450 dollars per location; the department would have authority to adjust these fees up to 600 dollars per location to maintain the Cigarette and Tobacco Products Compliance Fund at a level necessary to administer the act.

The measure preserves the statewide licensing program administered by the Department of Tax and Fee Administration and requires detailed information with each license filing, including the applicant’s contact details, the business name and location for every retail site, and a statement of compliance by the applicant. For applicants controlling multiple locations, the filing would include an address for correspondence, with citations issued to all listed addressees. The department may issue a retailer license without further investigation if the applicant holds a valid Alcoholic Beverage Control license for the same location, and the department would provide electronic means for submitting applications.

In addition to redefining the license, the bill expands regulatory definitions to include “flavored tobacco product” and “tobacco product flavor enhancer” for enforcement purposes and would repeal a prior provision that allowed seizure of flavored products from retailers under certain circumstances. It would add a framework for seizing flavored tobacco products or flavor enhancers possessed by a wholesaler, with seized products delivered to the department within a set timeframe and forfeited to the state. Civil penalties would accompany seizures at a rate of fifty dollars per individual package, with a structured enforcement sequence for wholesalers that includes warning notices, suspensions, and eventual license revocation, and penalties deposited into the Cigarette and Tobacco Products Compliance Fund. The definition of “package” would apply to individual retail units.

To accompany the licensing and enforcement changes, the measure requires the Legislative Analyst to prepare two biennial reports on the tobacco retailer enforcement landscape, due by December 1, 2027, and December 1, 2029, with cooperation from the Department of Tax and Fee Administration and the Office of Youth Tobacco Enforcement. The reports would address coordination among state and local agencies, compliance with youth-access restrictions, licensing-fee adequacy, costs associated with seizures, and considerations regarding escalating penalties for violations involving minors. The reporting requirement would terminate and be repealed on January 1, 2034, and the bill notes findings regarding balancing reporting with privacy.