This alcohol-free zone stretches from Swan Street all the way up to George Hanley Drive and as far west as Denison Street and Gladstone Avenue.

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"I looked at the maps - they are really huge," Cr David Brown said.

"I was surprised to find I was living in an alcohol-free zone. The North Wollongong one, there must be close to 15 to 20,000 people in that map. A lot of it is just suburbia - I'm not sure of the usefulness of having it all in like that."

This is one of seven alcohol-free zones in Wollongong, all of which are up for renewal for a new four-year period.

At Berkeley the zone includes the shopping area, neighbourhood centre and the swimming pool.

In Dapto it takes in the area between the rail line east to the motorway, including almost all residential properties.

Similarly, almost all of Thirroul is included in an alcohol-free zone.

According to council papers the aim of the zones is to "prevent the escalation of irresponsible drinking on streets and footpaths, to incidents involving serious crime".

Council is not required to enforce the zones; their creation permits police to take action should someone be seen drinking in public.

That is usually limited to tipping out the alcohol rather than issuing a fine.

"It's one of those policy areas where it's really poorly understood by the public as to what it means," Cr Brown said.

"People don't know what it means and what they cannot do or what their responsibilities are."

Cr Mithra Cox also found it unhelpful that such large swathes of the city were classed as alcohol-free zones and without any indications of how successful they were.

"In principle I don't have a problem with alcohol-free zones as a way of helping police dealing with specific problems in specific places," Cr Cox said.

"I don't believe classifying very large areas of our city, including the entire CBD is appropriate."

Northern Illawarra councillor Cameron Walters said he was concerned about whether the zones were even effective.

"I do have concerns with how much the police do use this," he said.

"I have many residents in Helensburgh who have called me about issues especially in the town centre about people throwing bottles and antisocial behaviour."

The councillors voted to place the proposed renewal of the zones on public exhibition until July 31.

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