The TTC is pulling down a series of ads for a mystery game business encouraging participants to escape from a psychiatric ward.

On Friday, the Star reported that Anne Thériault, 32, was among four people who filed formal complaints with the TTC asking that posters promoting the Mystery Room’s psychiatric ward escape game experience be removed.

Thériault, a former mental health hospital patient, said she was “grossed out” by the ads, which she believes could deter people from seeking treatment by depicting psychiatric wards as places that should incite fear.

She found the postings for the North York company challenging visitors to escape a room by deciphering clues especially “stigmatizing” in the wake of actor Robin Williams’ struggle with depression and recent suicide.

“I feel like it is one thing for that type of (business) to exist, but it is another thing for public transit to post advertisements for it,” she said. “We fund the TTC and that type of thing is super stigmatizing to anyone with mental illness who is in treatment at a psychiatric hospital or is considering it.”

Though ads are typically removed following a process requiring five complaints from the public and a decision from an advertising working group, the TTC overstepped the procedure to order the ads removed, according to spokesman Brad Ross.

“While nothing in this ad contravened TTC policy or any laws, we concur with customer concerns that were raised,” Ross said in an email to the Star, citing the TTC’s commitment to crisis prevention. “We will also review future advertising to ensure issues around mental health are more closely considered.”

Ross is unsure how fast the postings will be taken down, but said Mystery Room can submit new ones provided they meet TTC approval, laws, human rights codes and advertising standards.

Mystery Room owner Joe Burton said he has submitted new “generic” ads that do not intend to offend.

“We didn’t mean to offend anybody,” he said. “We were just thinking of scary themes and someone suggested a psych ward would be scary, but we didn’t really think of someone who was in one who might be offended.”

Thériault commends the TTC for acting quickly. On Friday night, she received an apology from Burton. “It was clearly something he hadn’t thought about, but that he wanted to make right.”

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