hiding model data based on id's existance in another table

[ihartjim]

I've got a somewhat complicated question for you cakephp experts.Basically, I have created a db table called "locations". Every month I will get this table sent to me in csv format from a client. Unfortunately, instead of updating this table, I will have to empty it and reimport all of the records. Unfortunately, I cannot alter this table at all. Functionality wise, users will have the ability to look at a display of these records, and be able to choose to hide certain ones. This "hidden" attribute must be persistent and survive the month to month purging of all records.I had all of this working yesterday. What I did was, create a separate table called location_properties (columns were: id(int), location_id(foreign key), is_hidden(boolean)). When showing these records, it would simply check to see if "is_hidden==true".This was all well and good(AND WORKING!), but then my boss kind of gummed up the works. He told me to delete the "is_hidden" column from the table because it would be more efficient. That I should be able to simply check for the existence of the location_id to hide or show it. It doesn't appear to be quite that simple. Anyone know how I can pull this off? I've tried everything I can think of.