Development of the Little Cottonwood Center at 9400 South and Highland Drive blotted out his mountain views, but it's not the scenery he misses so much as the calm and quiet.

"Every single night I hear nothing but semis going up and down 9400 South" to deliver goods to the retailers that now sit east of his home on Tramway Drive, he says.

Ricci has been griping about deliveries at Albertsons and other stores since the development opened in 1999. He says trucks frequently violate Sandy's noise ordinance, which bans deliveries after 9 p.m. and before 7 a.m. He has logged hundreds of calls to the city's Police Department, but seen only a few dozen citations issued.

Now Ricci is spearheading a grass-roots coalition - including some residents near Quarry Bend, a hotly disputed commercial development in a former gravel pit near 9200 South and 1000 East - to try to prod Sandy to enact a "zero-tolerance policy" for noise violations and to tighten city code to bump up fines and require restrictive gates and surveillance cameras on loading docks.

About two dozen residents - and about 10 city officials and business stakeholders - attended a community meeting last month on the subject.

On Tuesday, at its 7 p.m. meeting, the City Council will discuss whether the noise ordinance and its enforcement need to be ramped up.

But Albertsons and Sandy City Council Chairman Bryant Anderson, who attended last month's community forum, see the movement more as a one-man crusade than a broad-based coalition.

"Most of the activity regarding this is being promoted by one person: Mr. Gary Ricci," says Anderson, who argues relatively few others grouse about noise at Little Cottonwood Center or Quarry Bend.

Anderson says Ricci has ignored measures launched by Albertsons and other retailers to restrict noise. And Ricci's "abrasive nature," he says, has scared employees.

But the City Council is "trying to be objective and take a look at all of the [noise] concerns - including Mr. Ricci's," Anderson says.

Ricci concedes he has been banned from setting foot at Albertsons or Home Depot. He says he has videotaped hours of footage of trucks making deliveries in the middle of the night and has confronted a few employees about their noise.

Donna Eggers, a spokeswoman for Albertsons, says she is aware of the noise complaints from "one particular resident." But she says vendors are absolutely banned from delivering goods from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m., and the shopping center installed a locked gate in June that blocks driveways to all the stores to enforce that rule.

"We are doing everything - not only within the law and within the city regulations - but we've gone above and beyond that to work with this person, and he is still just harassing our associates and our drivers," Eggers says, noting the neighborhood is buffered by an 8-foot retaining wall and some open space.

Gary Pratt, a 13-year resident of Tramway Drive, backs Ricci's claims and has joined his efforts to get the city to crack down on noise at the shopping center.

"Over the years, there have been many noise-ordinance violations . . . not just one or two but hundreds," Pratt says, adding that he often is awakened early Saturday mornings with the clang of garbage Dumpsters being emptied.

Still, Ricci says his involvement in the effort may have doomed it from the outset, noting that two police officers now rush to his side whenever he gives public comments at city meetings.

"Because I'm the one who made this proposal, I can basically guarantee you, [the noise ordinance] won't get changed," he says. "I've been stripped of my civil rights from Sandy City officials."

rwinters@sltrib.com