In the first two hours of holding the petition yesterday, the Otago University Students' Association (OUSA) had gathered more than 600 signatures.
Students could add their names to the petition at an OUSA marquee set up within the tent city on the museum lawn. The tents and marquees will remain on the lawn throughout the week of Orientation.
OUSA president Logan Edgar said the association had developed ideas for an alternative to the liquor ban extension.
A bottle or glass ban could possibly be imposed in North Dunedin, which would allow some alcohol to be consumed without leading to litter and safety problems.
Other ideas included more consultation expressly with students, and greater student education on alcohol.
Ideally, public debate on the issue would lead to a compromise of sorts, Mr Edgar said.
"You want to be able to sit with your girlfriend in a park and have a bottle of wine, or have a barbecue and some beers."
The Dunedin City Council's planning and environment committee considered a report this month from liquor licensing and projects officer Kevin Mechen to extend the central city liquor ban to permanently include the North Dunedin student area.
The committee voted to begin public consultation on the proposal and also consideredreviewing the present liquor restrictions in the central city to add a requirement for police to warn people in the first instance, unless it was impractical to do so.
In his report, Mr Mechen said Dunedin only extended its 24-hour, seven-day central city liquor restriction into North Dunedin for events that were likely to "lead to excessive alcohol consumption and subsequent street disorder".
The report recommends the proposed extension go to the public for submissions from February 25 to March 23 and that a hearing of the submissions should follow.
The issue of extending the liquor ban has been regularly raised since 2004, and multiple requests to extend the ban to cover North Dunedin have been formally put to the council since 2006.