Airport, Limousine, Central Park, Smoking and Pictures: how can all come together?

My family arrived for a first-time- three-days-vacation, after almost two years since I got married and moved to New York. Who can blame them for not wanting to accept that their little girl is now a grown-up housewife (soon to be employed, fingers crossed please) in an estranged city… Ok, I’ll give it to you that housewife doesn’t suit me, but you should try my cooking before judging.
So, to make their first Big Apple experience very plump and tasty, we hired a limousine and picked them up at the airport.
We were eight passengers doing sightseeing from the inside of a very luxurious car and making random stops in peculiar places, one of them being the Great Lake in Central Park.
It’s a usual spot for tourist during summer, but with a temperature rounding the -8º C (18º F) and winds running faster than a bullet train, it’s most deserted during winter.
The troop made a bee-line for the Great Lake as soon as the limousine parked along the sidewalk and in a rush of movements, we started taking pictures and shouting order to get everyone on “portrait” mode.
Let me tell you how difficult it is to smile when you get brain freeze by opening your lips, or by lowering the hood from your coat… you get our dilemma to get everyone “picture perfect”.
My father was seizing the moment and lightning a cigarette, enjoying his first smoke after a four hour flight…when suddenly, a multitude of runners appear out of nowhere and threaten our frozenness in front of the camera.
They stopped two meters behind us, trying to squeeze by and continue their exercise.
The leader, a seventy year old guy with tights and a sports hat, came forward, directly to my father and with a non-smiling face asked, very adamant, for the cigarette to be put away.
We looked at each other, glanced at the open sky, the blowing wind, the tall trees, and the enormous park and stared at him in awe disbelief for his strange request.
Who heard such ridicule petition?
We understand that you can’t smoke in closed spaces, but out in the open?
I’m not going to transcribe what my father answered, just let me tell you that if words wouldn’t exist, the guy would most definitely be running the other way without even a glimpse back.
What can I say?
We Argentineans are not comfortable with rules, but we try to play by them in other countries to make a good impression… however, in this particular case, I think that revelry was permitted.
Greetings from a superstar diva riding the city in a lavish drive.