I don't understand why you need alcohol at work so bad you wouldn't want to work there without it. To me, that sounds like a dependency issue or possible wanna-be-fratboy-ism.

Booze is awesome but there's a time and place for it. If someone gets loaded at work enough to impair their ability to drive, then gets into an accident and injures or kills someone, their employer (in the US at least) could be liable in part. It's one thing to go out with your coworkers after work, or maybe even have a beer over lunch before going back to work, and it's another to need booze on premises.

Look, it is not a need, it is one factor among many.

Having draconian alcohol policies is a negative, and it can be weighed against the pros and cons of working there.

Maybe the pros out weight the singular drawback of uptight HR representives. But maybe it doesn't, and that one negative among many negatives is enough to push someone over the edge of not working there.

Ex:if the pay is higher then maybe I'd still take the job.

I don't really care about employer liability. That is their problem, not mine.

It's not the lack of alcohol, it's because HR are dictating culture. Beyond health and safety, the law or contractual obligations HR shouldn't be dictating this.

We're all adults, use your best judgement. Companies and offices should be able to have mature conversations around this without it being dictated.

At Stanford in academic dept, we had wine and beer social parties at work and at dept chair's house. No sexual harassment, no brogrammers and no calling the cops. Everyone went home sober enough.

Would you say the same about coke or ecstasy?

Those are both illegal and can cause much more problems than alcohol.

Not many people do coke and ecstacy. Whereas the vast majority of the population drink alcohol to some extend.