“It has been brought to our attention by building management and Security that the stairwells are being used inappropriately….Cigarettes, plastic cups filled with beer, and several used condoms were found in the stairwell. Yes, you read that right. Do not use the stairwells to smoke, drink, eat, or have sex. Please respect building and company policy and use common sense…”

Zenefits’s new chief executive, David Sacks, last week banned alcohol in the office of the health-insurance brokerage startup as he tries to reverse its rambunctious culture, especially among sales staff.

But it wasn’t just drinking booze that gave the San Francisco headquarters a frat-house feel.

Last June, Emily Agin, the company’s director of real estate and workplace services, sent a note to San Francisco-based employees to cut out crude behavior, lest the company lose access to the building’s stairwells.

The email, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, read in part:

“It has been brought to our attention by building management and Security that the stairwells are being used inappropriately….Cigarettes, plastic cups filled with beer, and several used condoms were found in the stairwell. Yes, you read that right. Do not use the stairwells to smoke, drink, eat, or have sex. Please respect building and company policy and use common sense…”

In a series of memos to staff this month, Mr. Sacks said it is important to cultivate a more mature work atmosphere befitting a company in the highly regulated health-insurance industry. In a note to staff on Wednesday instituting a new alcohol policy, Mr. Sacks said “it is too difficult to define and parse what is ‘appropriate’ versus ‘inappropriate’ drinking in the office.”

A handful of times, former employees say, staff members would gather together in the office to drink a shot when a salesperson signed a big new client. BuzzFeed last week reported on the party-like atmosphere.

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