I'm amazed that companies allow alcohol at work. It has to affect product quality and safety. Nobody in manufacturing allows that.
The difference is basically "at work (the place)" or "during work (the job)".
And so are Lawyers firms, accountants, and more or less every kind of work involving mostly typing, exception made for some start-ups, possibly limited to the US.
A glass of wine or beer at lunch may of course be OK, but surely not drinking in the office or happy hours.
From a job performance perspective the happy hour seems better anyways.
As in, the places you drive up to deposit checks? I have friends who in finance (for banks) and there is a very strong drinking culture at work.
Admittedly we go out for lunch more often as a team here than at my old job, and there's a conference/travel budget for everyone in the whole group (which we didn't have at all at my old job, unless you were in sales). And we have seasonal gatherings where alcohol is provided, and we are allowed to put drinks on our expense report when traveling for conferences, although usually in my limited experience here, nobody would dare order more than one drink per meal and try to expense it...
So not really the same thing at all. But yeah, I've never seen anyone order a beer at lunch since I came here, and it was a bit shocking coming from somewhere with no conference budget, where a beer at lunch whenever the boss is paying was one on a short list of perks we did have!
So who's right?
Like anything else: it's fine in moderation. Abuse is still abuse.