CHARLOTTE, NC -- People in Group 3 of the North Carolina COVID-19 vaccine rollout plan are now claiming appointment times.

This includes teachers, childcare employees, and other frontline essential employees like grocery store workers. The Giant Penny, a grocery store near Plaza Midwood, has been in the community for almost 30 years.

Luc Tran, the store’s owner, says during the pandemic, he saw a huge increase in customers. While the business boost was great, it also came with safety concerns.

“I see hundreds to sometimes a thousand people a day with close proximity,” Tran says. “For us, going to work it’s almost that fear of is this going to be my day?”

Tran says his employees started wearing masks in late February 2020, and they added plexiglass dividers to the registers in March 2020. He says when vaccines were announced, he was hopeful grocery store workers would be some of the first to get the shot.

After months of waiting, he has an appointment scheduled for next week.

“To have that vaccine coming out and being able to get it hopefully we can put some of that fear away,” he says.

He says he isn’t forcing his employees to get the vaccine, but out of the 35 employees, almost everyone is willing to get the vaccine.