Criteria for issuing licenses

The license is an authorization for the sale of processed tobacco complementary to that carried out by the ordinary resale to which it is aggregated. It constitutes a mere expansion of a pre-existing sales structure, which cannot be superimposed on it and justified by the need to provide the service in places and times in which this service cannot be performed by ordinary resale.

The license can be issued to an operator who has already another license - mainly a license for the administration of food and drinks - provided that in the chosen place there is a service need that is not sufficiently satisfied by the existing tobacconist network.

Licenses can be established at the places listed in art. 7, number 2, of the Decree of the Minister of Finance no. 38 of 2013, available on this site in the tobacco/national legislation/patents section.

The aforementioned listing is to be considered mandatory and therefore any other hypothesis is excluded.

For the purposes of issuing the license, the elements indicated in the aforementioned art. 7, no. 3, of the above mentioned Ministerial Decree n. 38 of 2013.

In any case, the license cannot be granted when an automatic distributor of manufactured tobacco is installed at the nearest retail outlet and the retail outlet itself is at a shorter distance than that referred to in art. 2. paragraph 2, of the several times mentioned D.M. n. 38 of 2013.

How to issue licenses

Applications for the issue of licenses, drawn up according to the attached scheme, can be submitted at any time of the year and must be addressed to the territorially competent Monopoly Office.

The applications are accompanied by a sworn appraisal signed by a professional registered in one of the professional registers established for this purpose, as well as by a substitutive declaration of affidavit signed by the applicant according to one of the attached schemes.

The sworn report contains:

  1. The representation of the area in which the applicant's business is located in 1/100 scale, on sheet A/3;
  2. The indication of the resale, ordinary or special, located at a distance of less than 600m, as well as of the establishments already equipped with aggregate licenses, pursuant to art. 54, fourth paragraph, of Presidential Decree 14 October 1958, n. 1074, and subsequent amendments, to the aforementioned ordinary resale, as resulting from the certification issued by the competent office, with the indication of their distance from the applicant's retail shop calculated according to the shortest pedestrian path;
  3. The plan of the premises of the applicant retail shop;
  4. For the service stations referred to in art. 6 of Ministerial Decree no. 38 of 2013, (available on the website www.agenziadoganemonopoli.gov.it tobacco section/national legislation) a plan that shows the surface of the plant and of the room intended for the sale of manufactured tobacco.

The substitutive declaration of notarial act:

  1. Opening time of the applicant's retail shop;
  2. The weekly rest day of the applicant's retail shop;
  3. The nature of the activity provided;
  4. The income resulting from the tax returns relating to the last two tax periods, to be attached in any case to the substitute declaration, as well as the number of tax receipts issued in these periods;
  5. The presence of automatic distributors of active tobacco products at the nearest ordinary retail outlet;
  6. The existence of any tax pending and/or arrears towards the tax authorities or towards the concessionaire of the collection definitively ascertained or resulting from unchallengeable sentences. For car service stations, the self-declaration is limited to the circumstances referred to in letter f).

The questions, complete with the aforementioned documentation, will be investigated by the competent Office and, in the event of a positive outcome, the interested party and all those involved in the procedure will be notified.

The license holder will not be able to exhibit, either inside and outside the business, any writing or signs indicating, even if only indirectly, the sale of manufactured tobacco.