It is cold outside, the parking lot is full and the parking machines don’t accept card payments.

Beginning this Monday, the El Camino College Police Department will enforce parking permits on campus, which means students that don’t buy the $35 parking pass must pay three dollars in cash or coins.

Students may find themselves with only a debit or credit card, however, most of the parking machines don’t accept card payments.

EC’s Chief of Police Michael Trevis said that credit card slots used to be accessible but became an inconvenience to students and the school.

“People were saying ‘Hey, my credit won’t come out, it’s stuck,’ and that had to do with the machine and the weather,” Trevis said.

Trevis added that the business end of the parking machines swayed EC into closing the credit card slots.

“After the bank took its fee and then that [telephone] modem fee, the college only got like $1.75,” Trevis said.”That’s what they finally netted.”

However, Trevis said the EC Parking and Traffic Advisory Council has revisited the idea of having credit card accessible parking machines.

“The philosophy has changed and, now, it’s more [about student] service,” Trevis said. “It is what it is but we need to make it convenient for the students.”

The EC Parking and Traffic Advisory Council will meet Wednesday, February 27, at 1 p.m. in Library Room 202.