You persist in understating the crime. This wasn’t selling an odd cig or two, this was persistent business for which he had been apprehended some 8 times.
And this wasn’t merely being arrested for a debatable crime, this was active statement and act of refusal to comply.
It’s actually rather difficult to understate the natural evil and malfeasance involved in selling loose cigarettes to willing buyers on the street, I don’t care how many times he did so, or how many times he was caught.
A four liter flush is made no more evil by multiple flushes. One cigarette or 20, big deal. And again, I don’t really know how it would be possible to understate the evil in this activity as there is none.
So he’s a violator of a malum prohibitum regulation; ticket him and move on.
It would be difficult to postulate a more pernicious waste of police powers than trying to effectuate a physical takedown of someone whose underlying “crime” is this trivial.