PORT ST. LUCIE — An unwelcome visitor, who likely had a painfully toothy grin, was escorted out of Walmart Tuesday with a trespass warning, according to Port St. Lucie police.

Instead of a shady ne’er-do-well drifter, the 3:17 a.m. visitor to the business in the 10800 block of South U.S. 1 was a 1.5-foot alligator.

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“He wandered into the employee break area,” said Master Sgt. Frank Sabol, Port St. Lucie police spokesman.

Employees called police, and Officer Michael Connor got to the scene.

“He scooped him up and escorted him off the property,” Sabol said in a tongue-in-cheek interview. “Gave him a trespass warning,”

Sabol said the trespass warning is valid for a year.

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“If he comes back in a year he’ll be much bigger, so we’ll be on the lookout for him,” Sabol said. “We’ll be on high alert.”

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Connor told the reptile, “See you later alligator.”

Sabol said the alligator was by the grocery side of the store, and that there were no "alligations" he went in for a snack.

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There were no injuries, perhaps because no one was up to their neck in alligators.

“He complied, didn’t resist us much,” Sabol said. “With our show of force and verbal commands we were able to take him into custody.”

Sabol said the alligator was re-located to a nearby waterway, released on his own recognizance.