Gastonia, NC Parking Rules: Commercial & Oversized Vehicles (2026)

Sec. 6-133 sets a flat seven-foot width ceiling for on-street parking anywhere in the city: subsection (a) bars parking any vehicle exceeding seven feet in width on any street unless the vehicle is actively engaged in loading or unloading at that moment. Most box trucks, moving vans, tractor-trailers and full-size work trucks exceed seven feet in width, so the rule effectively bars leaving them parked on any Gastonia street, residential or commercial, once the loading or unloading is finished. Subsection (b) carves out a single, narrow exception: temporary parking on Franklin Boulevard for a period not to exceed 30 minutes is allowed even for a vehicle over seven feet wide, and no similar grace period exists for any other street in the city.

The prohibition sits in Article IV, Division 1 of Chapter 6 alongside the city's other on-street parking rules, and it is enforced the same way: Sec. 6-226(b)(6) places a Sec. 6-133 violation on the immediate-tow list, so the Gastonia Police Department can have an oversized vehicle removed on the spot rather than issuing a citation and waiting. Subsection (c) separately makes a violation a misdemeanor, so a driver can face both towing costs and a criminal citation for parking a wide commercial vehicle on a residential or commercial street beyond the loading exception.