SLO man who set fire behind Elks Lodge sentenced to prison
A San Luis Obispo man was sentenced to 25 years to life for aggravated arson Tuesday, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
A jury convicted 54-year-old Bradley Norman Parrish of aggravated arson on July 21, 2023. The jury found he set fire to the land along San Luis Obispo Creek near the Elks Lodge on June 13, 2022.
It was Parrish’s fifth arson conviction, the District Attorney’s Office said.
Two bystanders saw the smoke and attempted “to contain the out of control fire,” the release said of the Elks Lodge fire. A previous news release said Parrish told the bystanders to let the flames burn.
When one of the bystanders grabbed a shovel to extinguish the fire, Parrish told the person that if they didn’t have a shovel, he would fight them, according to the release.
The San Luis Obispo City Fire Department extinguished the blaze before it could burn any structures, the agency said.
The agency said Parrish had been convicted of arson four times before setting fire to the land near Elks Lodge — three of which were “serious” or “violent” strike offenses under California’s three strikes sentencing law — in 1994, 2005, 2018 and 2019.
The judge denied a motion to dismiss two of the prior strikes, which would have decreased Parrish’s sentence.
