A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT expanding the purposes for which the towns of atlantic beach and Beaufort may use the proceeds from on‑street parking meters, providing that parking meters in the towns may be activated by commercially available means of prepayment credit, and authorizing the towns to use certain civil penalties collected for violating parking ordinances in the same manner in which proceeds from on‑street and off‑street parking facilities are used. 
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  G.S. 160A‑301 reads as rewritten:
"§ 160A‑301.  Parking.
(a)	On‑Street Parking. – A city may by ordinance regulate, restrict, and prohibit the parking of vehicles on the public streets, alleys, and bridges within the city. When parking is permitted for a specified period of time at a particular location, a city may install a parking meter at that location and require any person parking a vehicle therein to place the meter in operation for the entire time that the vehicle remains in that location, up to the maximum time allowed for parking there. Parking meters may be activated by coins, tokens, or any other commercially available means of providing prepayment credit. Proceeds from the use of parking meters on public streets may be used to defray the cost of enforcing and administering traffic and parking ordinances and regulations and may be used in the same manner in which proceeds from off‑street parking facilities are permitted under subsection (b) of this section.
…
(b1)	If a city ordinance for on‑street or off‑street parking provides that a violation of the ordinance shall subject the offender only to a civil penalty to be recovered by the city in a civil action in the nature of a debt, the city may retain the civil penalties collected in the civil action and use the funds in the same manner in which proceeds from on‑street and off‑street parking facilities are permitted under subsections (a) and (b) of this section.
.…"
SECTION 2.  This act applies to the Towns of Atlantic Beach and Beaufort only.
SECTION 3.  This act is effective when it becomes law.