Nothing appeared amiss on the downtown Burlington street corner where Chittenden County Sheriff Dan Gamelin posted up one morning last week. Office workers trudged up an alley to an eight-story building at Bank and Pine streets. A few teens walked and biked toward the nearby Burlington High School. During this humdrum commute, Gamelin sat in his unmarked black Chevy Tahoe and watched the block come to life. That was fine by him. One of the businesses inside that tall office building, Goldman Sachs, was paying Gamelin to keep watch for four hours a day, Monday through Friday. Elsewhere in the city, his deputies would monitor other patches of property, chosen by whoever was willing to pay them. Gamelin and his deputies would keep an eye out for trespassers, maintain a visible presence or make arrests — whatever the customer wished. Over the past year, Gamelin has transformed his department into a security service for hire, signing contracts with private businesses and the City of Burlington to provide security at specific locations. Most of the work is in the Queen City, where a spike in certain crimes, public drug use and homelessness has unsettled residents and frustrated merchants. The city's malaise, coupled with a staff shortage at the Burlington Police Department, has driven demand for security services. So, for the sheriff, business is booming. Gamelin's department raked in more than $530,000 from security details during the first nine months of 2024 — more than the previous five years combined. His department now patrols grocery stores, vacant buildings, apartments, office complexes and a city parking garage. The arrangements might seem inefficient in a city where victims of lower-level crimes complain that law enforcement isn't available to respond. When Seven Days reported last year that off-duty Burlington police officers had taken side gigs providing security for a Riverside Avenue condo complex, elected officials cried foul. But county sheriffs do not have the same responsibilities as municipal police departments. While they receive some tax dollars to pay the sheriff's salary and transport prisoners to court hearings, they raise most of their revenue through contracted work — escorting wide loads on the highway, for instance, or patrolling a town part time. Gamelin's initiative is both a sign of the times and an innovation, said Lamoille County Sheriff Roger Marcoux Jr., who has earned a reputation as one of the state's most enterprising sheriffs…